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UNION  LEAGUE  CLUB 
CHICAGO 


EXERCISES  IN  COnA\EA\ORATION 


or  THE 


BIRTriDAYorWASMlNGTON 

EEBRUARY  22.  1900 


•To  inculcate  a  higher  appreciation  of  the  value  and  sacred  obligations  of 
American  citizenship." — Articles  of  Association. 


CHICAGO 

Metcalf  Stationery  Co. 

Printers 


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'  I  'HE    exercises    of    February    22,    1900,  under    the    auspices    of 
the    Union     League    Club    of    Chicago,    in  commemoration 
of  the  birthday  of  Washington,  were : 

In  the  morning,  celebrations  at  forty-seven  of  the  Chicago 
Public  Schools,  presided  over  and  addressed  by  members  of  the 
Club. 

Music  was  in  charge  of  the  music  teachers  of  the  Chicago 
Public  Schools.  • 

In  the  afternoon.  Address  at  the  Auditorium,  by  the  Hon. 
Jacob  Gould  Schurman,  before  the  members  of  the  Club  and 
their  invited    guests. 

In  the  evening,  banquet  and  speeches  in  the  dining-room  of 
the    Club    House. 


UNION   LEAGUE  CLUB 
CELEBRATION  OF  ^VASHINGTON'S  BIRTHDAY. 


The  Auditorium — Three  o'clock. 


'Star  Spangled  Banner"  -          -          -          -          .    The  Audience 

Invocation,      -          -  -          -             Rev.  William  J.  McCaughan 

*Red  White  and  Blue,"  .          .         .          .              The  Audience 

Introductory  Remarks,  The  President  of  the  Union  League  Club 

Oration,  "Expansion"  -          -           Hon.  Jacob  Gould  Schurman 

'America"              -          -  -          -          -          -          -    The  Audience 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/exercisesincommeOOuniorich 


EXERCISES  AT  THE  AUDITORIUM. 


The  usual  celebration  was  held  in  the  Auditorium  in  the 
afternoon.  The  building  was  filled  long  before  the  time  set  for 
the  commencement,  and  great  enthusiasm  was  displaf^ed. 

After  an  organ  solo  by  Professor  Harrison  M.  Wild,  the 
Hyde  Park  Young  Ladies'  Glee  Club  sang  ''The  Star-Spangled 
Banner,"  the  audience  joining  heartily  in  the  chorus. 

The  chaplain  of  the  day,  the  Rev.  WilHam  J.  McCaughan, 
then  offered  the  following  prayer,  the  audience  remaining 
standing. 

'*God  over  all ;  blessed  forever ;  we  come  to  Thee  with 
thanksgiving;  we  praise  Thy  great  name  for  all  Thy  goodness 
and  Thy  love.  We  thank  Thee  for  the  memory  of  the  brave 
and  true  who  have  lived  and  loved  and  fought  and  died  for  honor 
and  righteousness.  We  pray  Thee  to  grant  that  the  recollection 
of  their  actions  may  inspire  us  to  do  better  than  we  have  done. 
We  pray  for  this  land.  Grant  Thy  blessing  upon  the  president 
of  these  United  States.  Surround  him  with  counsellors  wise  and 
patriotic,  so  that  the  affairs  of  this  great  commonwealth  may 
be  directed  for  the  honor  of  Thy  name  and  for  the  good  of  this 
world.     And  all  we  ask  is  in  Christ's  name.     Amen.'! 

After  'The  Red,  VVhite  and  Blue"  had  been  sung  by  the 
entire  audience,  led  by  the  glee  club,  the  speaker  of  the  day  was 
introduced  by  President  Eugene  Gary  in  the  following  words : 

INTRODUCTORY  ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  GARY 
AT  THE  AUDITORIUM,  FEB.  22,  1900. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  We  are  assembled  here,  the  mem- 
bers and  guests  of  the  Union  League  Club,  to  do  homage  to  the 
memory  of  Washington  and  to  celebrate  the  day  which  gave 
him  birth.  It  is  needless  to  dispute  with  others  as  to  his  rank 
in  minor  things.    We  know  that  for  us  and  for  our  country  his 

7 


is  the  greatest  name  that  Hves ;  that  in  the  grand  struggle  and 
march  for  freedom  he  was  humanity's  greatest  leader,  and  that 
through  us  as  a  nation  he  gave  to  the  world  its  chiefest  example 
of  republican  self-government.  And  now  that  his  greatness  is 
acknowledged  and  his  praises  sung  the  world  round,  our  hearts 
swell  with  pride  and  gratitude  that  he  is  ours ;  our  countryman ; 
our  great  American ;  our  Washington.  Not  the  safe  and  in- 
vincible General  merely,  not  the  wise  first  President,  but  George 
Washington,  the  sublime  personality,  greatest  seen  when  all 
props  and  scaflfoldings  of  rank  and  station  are  torn  away. 

Appreciating  the  value  of  national  holidays  and  the  celebra- 
tion of  great  national  events  and  characters  in  keeping  alive 
and  stimulating  a  national  spirit,  without  which  there  can  be 
little  sense  or  sentiment  of  patriotism,  the  Union  League  Club 
has  adopted  Washington's  birthday  for  annual  celebration,  as 
being  the  day  best  suited  to  its  purpose  as  a  non-partisan  and 
purely  patriotic  body  in  organization  and  aim.  For  to  this 
shrine  all  the  people  may  bring  their  offerings  of  devotion  with- 
out distinction  of  race  or  creed  or  party.  Accordingly  on  each 
recurring  22d  of  February  the  members  of  the  Club,  their  guests 
and  friends,  come  together  here  to  join  in  celebrating  the  day 
with  fitting  ceremonies  and  to  listen  to  an  oration  or  address 
from  some  gentleman  of  distinction,  generally  eminent  for 
learning  and  public  service,  on  some  theme  of  national  interest 
suited  to  the  occasion. 

But  the  zeal  and  efforts  of  the  Club  do  not  end  here.  Appre- 
ciating that  the  best  soil  for  the  planting  of  useful  seed  is  in  the 
minds  of  the  children,  it  invades  the  schools  of  our  city  with 
speakers  and  flags  and  music — has  invaded  some  forty  or  fifty 
of  them  to-day — and  with  patriotic  exercises,  speeches  and  songs 
seeks  to  make  the  day  so  impressive,  in  fact  exciting,  that  it 
shall  dwell  forever  a  pleasant  memory  in  the  minds  of  the  chil- 
dren and  be  all  through  their  lives  a  constant  stimulant  and 
inspiration  of  love  of  country  and  patriotic  ardor.  This  is  the 
'work  of  the  Union  League  Club  on  the  226.  of  February.  If 
it  had  no  other  claim,  thisVould  be  sufficient  warrant  for  its 
existence  and  for  your  approval.  But  aside  from  this  and  in  all 
proper  ways  it  seeks  to  be  a  constant,  helpful  and  patriotic  factor 
in  the  life  and  affairs  of  our  city  and  nation. 

8 


To  address  us  to-day  we  are  so  fortunate  as  to  have  a  gentle- 
man distinguished  not  only  for  learning  but  for  eminent  public 
service  recently  rendered,  the  honored  president  of  Cornell  Uni- 
versity and  lately  a  Commissioner  from  this  government  to  the 
Philippine  Islands.  His  theme  will  be  one  on  which  instruc- 
tion is  both  needful  and  timely.  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  have 
the  honor  to  introduce  President  Schurman,  who  will  now  ad- 
dress you. 

EXPANSION. 
ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JACOB  GOULD  SCHURMAN. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen :  It  is  now  one  hundred  years  since 
George  Washington,  whose  birthday  is.  the  occasion  of  our 
assemblage,  exchanging  time  for  eternity,  closed  his  eyes  upon 
a  world  which  had  never  entertained  a  nobler  man,  a  braver 
general,  or  a  wiser  statesman.  In  less  than  the  three-score  and 
ten  years  alloted  to  human  existence — from  February  22,  1732, 
to  December  14,  1799 — he  had  lived  a  life  and  wrought  a  work 
which  will  cover  his  name  with  glory  inextinguishable  so  long 
as  this  planet  retains  a  memory  for  the  heroic  achievements  of 
its  most  exalted  sons.  Indeed  Washington  has,  as  it  were, 
incorporated  himself  into  our  continent;  not  only  is  it  impossi- 
ble to  dissociate  his  name  from  America,  but  his  high  and  serene 
spirit  seems  to  preside  over  our  national  destinies.  In  his  teach- 
ings and  example,  too,  we  have  an  invaluable  and  imperishable 
possession.     Though 

"the  great  world  spin  forever 
Down  the  ringing  grooves  of  change," 
we  feel  that  Washington's  ideas  of  liberty,  justice,  and  national 
righteousness  must  live  undimmed  and  immutable  in  the  hearts 
of  every  generation  of  Americans. 

I  trust  there  is  no  impropriety  in  devoting  this  hour  of  Wash- 
ington's birthday  to  reflections  upon  that  larger  world  into  which 
a  century's  expansion  has  carried  us.  Bigness,  it  is  true,  is  not 
greatness,  and  prosperity  is  not  virtue,  nor  is  the  acquisition  of 
territory  growth  in  patriotism ;  but  there  is  no  incompatibility 
between  these  ends ;  indeed  the  greatest  expansionist  of  the  last 
century  was  George  Washington  himself. 

Scientists  tell  us  of  the  reversion  of  organic  beings,  after  the 

9 


lapse  of  generations,  to  the  form  or  habits  of  an  earUer  type.  If 
this  law  of  biology  holds  good  in  politics,  as  I  believe  it  does, 
then  our  present  Chief  Magistrate  in  his  policy  of  expansion 
would  seem  to  have  been  possessed  by  the  spirit  of  Washington, 
who  extended  the  national  domain  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Mis- 
sissippi, or  of  Jefferson,  who,  impelled  by  the  same  imperious 
instinct,  trampled  under  foot  his  dearest  political  theories  and 
secured  for  the  Union  that  vast  territory  beyond  the  Mississippi 
where  the  flag  now  waves  over  the  prosperous  and  intelligent 
citizens  of  a  dozen  populous  states — states  whose  trade  and 
wealth  converging  on  the  shores  of  this  lake,  have  made  possible 
the  greatest  miracle  on  the  American  continent :  the  rapid-rising, 
fast-growing,  immense,  rushing,  roaring,  powerful,  and  mag- 
nificent city  of  Chicago. 

Chicago  is  the  index  of  the  modern  world.  It  is  the  most 
conspicuous  example  and  the  most  concentrated  abstract  of  that 
expansive  movement  which  characterizes  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. With  less  than  30,000  people  here  in  1850,  you  had  in 
1870  nearly  300,000,  and  in  1890  over  a  million.  I  shall  not 
venture  to  conjecture  the  population  at  the  present  time,  but  I 
suppose  the  largest  estimates  scarcely  exceed  the  actual  num- 
bers, or  if  they  do,  so  great  and  rapid  is  your  increase  that  while 
the  investigation  continues  the  exaggeration  ends.  Nor  is  it  a 
growth  in  population  only;  there  has  been  a  corresponding 
augmentation  of  wealth  attended  by  an  improvement  in  the 
general  well-being,  an  extension  and  elevation  of  popular  educa- 
tion, and  an  unprecedented  multiplication  and  development  of 
all  those  objects  and  institutions  which  mark  and  express  the 
highest  civilization. 

Chicago  is  the  product  of  the  nineteenth  century.  And  if 
this  latest  birth  of  time  is  an  amazing  and  unparalleled  phe- 
nomenon, so  also  is  the  epoch  which  produced  it.  This  cen- 
tury is  unlike  all  the  centuries  that  have  gone  before.  Our 
most  distinguished  scientist  has  christened  it  "the  wonderful 
century."  And  so  indeed  it  is,  not  merely  in  the  free  hyperbole 
of  popular  speech,  but  in  the  severe  exactitude  of  scientific 
description.  For  a  miracle  is  a  departure  from  established  ways, 
and  the  whole  history  of  mankind  shows  nothing  that  could 
have  augured  the  intellectual  and  material  achievements  of  the 
last  three  generations.     How  shall  I  describe  them?     What  is 

10 


the  token  of  this  wonderful  century?  I  say,  in  a  word,  expan- 
sion— a  boundless  extension  of  human  knowledge  and  a  vast 
enlargement  of  human  power.  In  this  century,  for  the  first  time, 
the  might  of  intellect  has  given  man  dominion  over  the  forces 
of  nature.  That  kingdom  of  man  which  Bacon  foretold  and 
Shakespeare  pictured  in  immortal  verse  has  come.  It  is  Irere. 
Man  is  no  longer  the  sport  of  nature  but  her  master.  With  the 
magic  wand  of  science  he  has  subdued  air,  fire,  water,  steam,  and 
electricity ;  and  those  titanic  forces,  like  obedient  servants,  now 
wait  upon  him,  serve  him,  and  do  his  bidding.  The  miracle  of 
the  nineteenth  century  is  the  systematic  harnessing  of  all  the 
powers  of  nature  to  do  the  will  of  man.  And  for  this  stupen- 
dous achievement  you  will  not  find  an  equivalent  even  in  the 
combined  arts  and  sciences  of  all  the  preceding  centuries  though 
you  go  back  to  the  dawn  of  history  or  perhaps  even  to  the  stone 
age  itself.  The  nineteenth  century  is  the  mountain  of  transfig- 
uration for  progressive  humanity. 

You  will  not  expect  me,  and  indeed  I  confess  I  am  not  com- 
petent, to  describe  the  great  scientific  discoveries  which  have 
changed  the  face  of  modern  life  and  civilization.  Varied  and 
significant  as  they  are,  however,  they  may  all  be  reduced  to  a 
dozen  fundamental  principles  like  the  law  of  the  conservation  of 
energy,  the  doctrine  of  organic  evolution,  and  the  germ  theory 
of  zymotic  diseases.  These  principles,  which  are  the  work  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  excel  both  in  number  and  importance  the 
scientific  discoveries  of  all  preceding  ages.  I  mean  that  the 
last  three  generations  have  learned  more  about  the  universe  in 
which  we  live  than  all  the  earlier -generations  of  mankind.  Why 
the  modern  astronomer,  by  means  of  spectrum  analysis,  takes 
the  heat  and  reads  the  elements  of  the  stars,  and  even  ascertains 
the  existence  and  determines  the  rate  of  motion  of  stellar  bodies 
which  no  eye  has  seen  and  no  telescope  can  reveal ;  and,  extend- 
ing liis  explorations  through  the  sublime  abysses  of  infinite 
space,  demonstrates  that  our  earth  is  but  a  fraction  of  one  out  of 
at  least  75,000,000  worlds  ! 

And  then  what  marvelous  inventions  this  century  has  origi- 
nated !  The  Roentgen  rays  have  rendered  opaque  objects  trans- 
parent. The  photograph  catches  and  preserves  forms  and  colors 
as  the  phonograph  does  sounds.  Primitive  modes  of  producing 
and   utilizing   artificial   light    remained    to     the    close     of   the 

11 


eighteenth  century ;  and  Hghting  by  means  of  lamps  with  chim- 
neys, then  by  gas,  and  more  recently  by  electricity,  renders  the 
nineteenth  century,  which  made  those  new  departures,  more  fruit- 
ful in  the  field  of  domestic  and  public  illumination  than  the  whole 
preceding  period  since  fire  was  first  taken  into  the  service  of 
mankind.  And  what  shall  I  say  of  the  telegraph  and  the  tele- 
phone, the  one  transmitting  words  and  the  other  speech  with  the 
rapidity  of  lightning?  In  the  eighteenth  century  the  letter  or 
the  messenger  was  the  only  medium  of  communication  with 
persons  at  a  distance,  as  it  had  been  through  all  the  centuries 
since  picture-writing  or  hieroglyphics  were  first  invented. 
Naturally  intercourse  w^as  slow^  precarious,  infrequent,  and 
difficult.  But  the  telegraph  and  telephone  have  annihilated  dis- 
tance, made  the  round  globe  a  whispering  gallery,  and  brought 
all  that  dwell  upon  it  into  communication  with  one  another. 

The  creation  of  these  marvelous  methods  of  communication 
with  our  fellow-men  all  over  the  world  has  been  accompanied  by 
a  similar  revolution  in  methods  of  locomotion  and  transporta- 
tion. Up  to  this  century  men  or  animals  had  been  the  carriers 
of  travelers  and  of  goods  since  the  earliest  historic  and  even  pre- 
historic times.  And  the  chariot  in  which  the  Bible  tells  us 
Pharaoh  made  Joseph  ride,  or  the  chariot  in  which,  according 
to  Homer,  Telemachus  traveled  from  Pylos  to  Sparta  was  not 
essentially  different  from  the  coach  of  George  Washington. 
Traveling  was  not  swifter  or  more  convenient  in  the  eighteenth 
century  than  it  was  in  the  first,  when,  indeed,  the  Roman  had 
the  advantage  of  better  roads.  But  what  a  revolution  the  nine- 
teenth century  has  effected  by  means  of  the  railway  and  steam 
locomc^t^^re  I  Instead  of  carrvinsf  a  few  passeng^ers  at  a  maximum 
speed  of  ten  or  twelve  miles  an  hour  we  now  carry  hundreds  of 
passengers  and  tons  of  goods  for  unlimited  distances  at  a  speed 
of  fifty  or  sixty  miles  an  hour — and  that  too  with  economy, 
safety,  and  punctuality.  A  similar  result  has  been  produced  by 
the  use  of  steam  for  the  propulsion  of  vessels,  especially  since 
the  ocean  voyage  of  the  "Great  Western"  in  1838.  Both  on 
sea  and  land  the  methods  of  locomotion  and  transportation 
which  had  been  used  for  thousands  of  years  have  been,  not 
merely  modified,  but  completely  revolutionized  by  the  astound- 
ing inventions  and  appliances  of  the  nineteenth  century.  And 
nowhere  have  these  mechanical  developments  been  fuller  and 

12 


richer,  nowhere  have  the  resuhs  of  them  been  more  astound- 
ing, than  in  the  United  States.  Railroads  have  come  into  exist- 
ence since  1830;  in  1849  there  were  over  7,000  miles  in  operation 
in  this  country,  in  1879  nearly  87,000,  and  in  1899  not  less  than 
187,000.  This  is  a  greater  railroad  mileage  than  thai  of_^Eu- 
rope,  and  the  business  done  is  not  less,  though  our  population 
is  only  one-fifth  of  tne  European.  The  growth  of  our  shipping- 
interests  is  scarcely  less  remarkable.  The  tonnage  cleared  at 
all  our  ports,  both  sail  and  steam,  aggregated  in  1859  scarcely 
5,000,000;  whereas  in  1879  it  had  risen  to  13,600,000,  and  in 
1899  to  over  26,000,000,  The  tonnage  of  vessels  passing  through 
the  Sault  Ste.  Marie  canal  rose  from  5,130,000  in  1888  to  18,622,- 

000  in  1898,  which  is  considerably  greater  than  the  combined 
tonnage  of  the  Suez,  North  Sea  and  Manchester  canals  for  the 
same  year. 

Expansion,  I  have  said,  is  the  characteristic  note  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  It  has  been  a  century  of  expanding  knowledge, 
a  century  of  abounding  invention,  a  century  of  amazing  increase 
in  the  means  of  communication  and  transportation. 

But  marvelous  as  are  these  phases  of  intellectual  and  material 
progress  which   have  their  origin  in  the    nineteenth    century, 

1  suppose  that  modern  life  and  civilization  owe  a  still  larger 
debt  to  the  wonderful  development  during  the  same  period  of  all 
forms  of  labor-saving  machinery,  which  it  was  the  glory  of  the 
eighteenth  century  to  have  invented  and  in  simple  ways  to  have 
applied.  The  cotton  industry  has  been  revolutionized  by  the 
inventions  of  Hargreaves,  Arkwright,  Whitney,  and  their  suc- 
cessors. In  1 79 1  the  world  produced  a  milHon  bales  of  cotton, 
of  which  only  about  5,000  were  raised  in  the  United  States.  In 
1799  this  country  produced  89,000  bales;  in  1879  over  5,000,000, 
and  in  1899  about  11,500,000.  At  the  beginning  of  the  century 
our  cotton  product  was  an  infinitesimal  fraction  of  the  world's 
total  supply;  at  the  close  of  the  century  we  are  raising  nine- 
tenths  of  the  cottoii  of  the  world.  And  the  number  of  our  spin- 
dles has  increased  from  4,000  in  1805  to  nearly  18,000,000  at  the 
present  time. 

Our  industrial  development,  however,  rests  primarily  on 
iron  and  steel.  And  nothing  is  more  remarkable  than  the  im- 
provements which  this  century  has  witnessed  in  the  methods  of 
producing   them.     These   improvements,   which    are   associated 

13 


with  the  names  of  Cort,  Neilson,  Siemens,  and  especially  Besse- 
mer, culminated  in  the  method  of  converting  pig  iron  and  iron 
ore  into  steel  by  means  of  the  blast  furnace  without  resort  to 
the  cumbersome  intermediate  processes  which  had  formerly 
been  indispensable.  Steel  can  now  be  produced  as  cheaply  as 
iron  was  formerly;  and  labor-saving  machinery  is  thus  made 
possible  for  every  branch  of  manufacture,  trade,  and  agriculture. 
As  a  consequence  the  power  of  production  has  been  enormously 
increased.  The  universal  cry  for  new  markets  is  a  direct  result 
of  our  increased  control  over  the  resources  of  nature  through 
the  instrumentalities  which  iron  and  steel  in  particular  supply. 
The  iron  and  steel  business  is  therefore  at  once  the  heart  and 
the  pulse  of  modern  trade  and  commerce.  And  nowhere  has 
there  been  a  more  surprising  expansion.  Our  production  of 
pig  iron  rose  from  2,741,000  tons  in  1879  to  7,600,000  in  1889, 
and  touched  the  enormous  tigure  uf  13,640,000  tons,  which  was 
valued  at  $149,734,000,  in  1899.  During  the  same  two  decades 
the  production  of  iron  ore  increased  from  about  7,000,000  tons 
a  year  to  over  25,000,000  (with  a  value  of  over  $50,000,000).  Or, 
to  drop  figures,  let  me  say  that  we  are  today  making  more  than 
one-third  of  the  world's  iron  and  steel.  This  helps  to  explain 
the  enormous  increase  observable  in  the  output  of  bituminous 
coal,  which  in  1869  aggregated  17,664,000  tons,  but  which  in 
1899  was  nearly  ten  times  as  much,  namely,  170,410,000  tons. 

These  facts  show  the  industrial  supremacy  of  the  United 
States.  Our  agricultural  pre-eminence  is  an  old  story,  and  we 
still  grow  one-fifth  of  the  world's  wheat  and  seven-eighths  of  its 
corn.  But  the  rising,  the  overwhelming,  tide  of  our  manufac- 
tures is  a  comparatively  new  phenomenon.  I  will  not  trouble 
you  with  figures.  Let  me  merely  say  that  in  1870  our  manu- 
factures were  about  equal  to  the  manufactures  of  Great  Britain ; 
and  now  they  are  equal  to  those  of  Great  Britain,  France,  and 
Germany  combined.  A  few  years  ago  the  cry  was  for  the  home 
market;  but  in  addition  to  the  home  market  we  now  need  the 
markets  of  the  world.  Science,  invention,  and  manufacturing 
have  all  expanded  together.  Our  total  exports  of  all  kinds  of 
domestic  merchandise  were  valued  at  $730,000,000  in  1889;  in 
1899  they  were  $1,204,000,000.  But  the  rate  of  increase  of  our 
exports  of  manufactures  was  much  greater;  for  they  rose  from 
$139,000,000  in  1889  to  $339,000,000  in  1899,  of  which  an  advance 

14 


from  $21,000,000  to  $94,000,000  was  due  to  the  enormous 
increase  in  the  exports  of  manufactures  of  iron  and  steel.  I 
cannot  speak  (for  there  is  not  time)  of  copper  and  its  products, 
the  exports  of  which  have  increased  from  $3,800,000  in  1888  to 
$32,200,000  in  1898;  or  of  leather  and  its  products,  whose  export 
values  were  $9,500,000  in  1888  and  $21,100,000  in  1898;  or  of 
agricnitural  implements,  locomotives,  and  fertilizers,  the  value 
of  whose  exports  have  trebled  during  the  same  decade.  Eut  I 
must  say  a  word  regarding  another  important  product.  We  now 
furnish  nearly  half  of  the  world's  supply  of  crude  petroleum  and 
two-thirds  of  its  refined  illuminating  oil.  Since  the  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  in  1872  the  aggregate  value 
of  the  exports  of  petroleum  up  to  1898  was  $1,246,848,000.  This 
enormous  expansion  of  trade  has  been  due  to  science,  to  in- 
vention, to  labor,  to  brains,  but  not  less  to  the  efficacy  of  com- 
bined capital  and  consolidated  management,  which  is  revolu- 
tiuinzing  tiie  producing  and  distributing  business  of  the  closing 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  accumulated  capital  of  the  country  beggars  all  descrip- 
tion. It  has  more  than  trebled  since  1870;  and  it  is  now  increas- 
ing at  the  rate  of  $2,000,000,000  a  year.  This  means  a  greatly 
accelerated  activity  and  a  prodigious  expansion  in  production 
and  distribution.  An  indication  of  the  rapidly  swelling  tide  of 
business  is  furnished  by  the  transactions  of  the  New  York  Clear- 
ing House,  whose  clearings  in  1889  aggregated  $37,606,000,000 
and  in  1899  not  less  than  $60,682,000,000. 

To  such  unparalleled  expansion  in  finance,  in  manufacturing, 
in  agriculture  have  we  attained  at  the  close  of  this  wonderful 
century.  I  beg  the  practical  man  to  remember  that  it  is  due 
primarily  to  those  great  discoveries  regarding  the  forces  and 
laws  of  nature  by  which  the  men  of  the  nineteenth  century  have 
eclipsed  the  aggregate  scientific  achievements  of  all  the  preced- 
ing generations  of  mankind.  I  do  not,  of  course,  forget  that 
capital,  skill,  and  labor  have  been  co-operating  causes  in  produc- 
ing this  expansion,  which  every  day  gathers  fresh  strength. 
The  momentum  it  has  already  acquired  is  carrying  us  forward 
at  an  incredible  velocity.  To  slacken  the  speed  or  contract  the 
volume  of  this  movement  would  be,  not  only  to  surrender  the 
supremacy  which  we  have  achieved  in  material  civilization,  or 
not  merely  to  reduce  the  profits  on  invested  capital ;  it  would  be 

15 


something  still  more  disastrous,  it  would  involve  the  diminution 
of  wages  and  the  lowering  of  the  standard  of  living  of  the  Ameri- 
can laborer,  who  is  the  representative  of  the  American  people. 
Such  an  issue  must  be  averted  at  all  hazards.  And  just  here 
comes  the  problem  of  problems  for  our  statesmen,  our  thinkers, 
and  our  great  captains  of  industry.  Our  power  of  production 
having  outrun  our  capacity  to  consume  and  being  all  the  time 
on  the  increase,  and  the  old  markets  of  the  world  being  glutted 
by  the  products  of  all  civilized  nations,  what  new  outlets  are 
there  for  our  waxing  productivity,  what  new  fields  for  the  recep- 
tion of  the  surplus  commodities  we  multiply  so  rapidly  and  at  a 
constantly  declining  cost?  This  is  the  question  put  to  the 
American  people  by  the  Sphinx  of  the  twentieth  century.  And 
the  life  of  the  nation  in  no  small  degree  depends  on  the  answer. 
It  is  true  that  the  markets  of  the  world  are  limited.  And  I 
sometimes  speculate  how  Yankee  inventiveness  is  to  find  an 
outlet  when  the  economic  wants  of  all  nations  are  satisfied.  For 
with  our  present  command  of  nature's  forces  and  resources  our 
power  of  production  is  of  almost  infinite  extent.  Perhaps  we 
shall  in  the  future  manufacture  for  some  other  world  and  send 
our  commodities  through  the  air  by  means  of  trackless  cars. 
But  at  present  we  are  restricted  to  this  Httle  planet.  And  here 
the  only  peoples  who  have  yet  reached  the  manufacturing  stage, 
the  only  peoples  who  do  not  compete  with  us  in  their  own  rnar- 
kets,  are  the  vast  populations  of  South  America,  Africa,  and 
especially  of  Asia.  In  consequence  of  circumstances  which  I 
shall  not  stop  to  describe,  both  Great  Britain  and  Germany  have 
got  ahead  of  us  in  the  markets  of  South  America ;  but  if  our 
manufacturers  will  follow  foreign  example  in  adapting  their 
'products  to  local  tastes  and  needs,  I  see  no  obstacle  in  the  way 
of  our  securing  a  fair  share — and  that  will  be  the  lion's  share — 
of  that  hitherto  undeveloped  and  neglected  business.  As  to 
Africa  the  case  is  dififerent.  We  have  allowed — in  my  judg- 
ment it  was  a  great  mistake — but  in  our  blind  idolatry  of  what 
was  called,  though  erroneously,  the  Monroe  doctrine,  in  our 
devotion  to  the  stay-at-home  policy  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
in  our  intense  desire  to  avoid  all  international  obligations,  we 
have  allowed  the  great  nations  of  Europe  to  partition  out  Africa 
among  themselves  and  exclude  American  products  by  means  of 
discriminating  tariffs  devised  to  secure  for  their  own  manufac- 

16 


turers  a  monopoly  of  the  new  markets.  I  say  we  stood  uncon- 
cernedly by  and  remained  silent  while  those  vast  possibilities 
of  expanding  trade  were  one  by  one  extinguished.  For  justi- 
fication we  cited  some  abstract  theory  of  non-intervention  in  the 
affairs  of  the  Old  World;  and  no  one  could  pretend  that  Africa 
was  in  our  hemisphere !  Our  blunder  was  in  our  failure  to  rec- 
ognize that  science  and  invention  and  steam  and  electricity 
have,  since  the  days  of  Washington  and  Jefferson,  made  the 
whole  world  one,  and  every  part  of  it,  for  commercial  purposes, 
a  possible  province  of  the  United  States. 

But  the  psychological  moment  has  passed.  In  Africa  we 
shall  have  only  such  trading  rights  and  privileges  as  the  Euro- 
pean overlords  may  be  graciously  pleased  to  vouchsafe  us.  Hap- 
pily Asia  remained — Asia,  the  largest,  richest,  and  most  popu- 
lous of  the  unoccupied  markets  of  the  world.  All  eyes  were  on 
China,  with  its  splendid,  inexhaustible,  and  undeveloped  natural 
resources  and  its  400,000,000  people  strangely  stirring  with  a 
new  and  mighty  life.  England  made  a  great  effort  to  keep  its 
trade  doors  open,  but  she  failed.  x\nd  Englishmen  in  the  East, 
as  I  well  recall  from  conversations  with  them  in  Shanghai,  Can- 
ton, and  Hong  Kong,  gave  way  to  discouragement,  which  almost 
verged  on  despair.  With  France  on  the  south,  Germany  on  the 
east,  and  the  Russian  bear's  paw^  over  all  the  north,  the  inde- 
pendence and  territorial  integrity  of  China  trembled  in  the  bal- 
ance ;  yet  if  her  sovereignty  collapsed,  if  those  European  powers 
divided  up  and  appropriated  that  vast  empire,  their  several  an- 
nexations would  have  been  closed  to  American  trade  and 
commerce. 

That  this  disaster  to  our  industries  has  been  averted  you  owe 
to  the  prescience,  wisdom,  and  skill  df  the  statesman  who  to-day 
worthily  fills  the  chair  of  Washington.  Thanks  to  the  brilliant 
and  truly  memorable  diplomacy  of  the  present  administration 
the  great  nations  of  Europe  have  agreed — and  agreed  in  writing 
— that  whatever  political  or  territorial  policies  they  may  pursue 
in  China,  the  open  door  to  trade,  the  equal  commercial  rights 
and  privileges  we  now  enjoy  with  them,  shall  remain  intact  and 
inviolable.  And  we  had  scarcely  recovered  from  our  surprise 
and  admiration  over  this  high  achievement  of  American  diplo- 
macy when  we  were  once  more  smitten  with  astonishment  at 
the  success  of  the  administration's  negotiations  for  the  construc- 

17 


tion  of  an  interoceanic  canal  under  American  control.  Here  is 
the  long-desired  highway  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific, 
needed  more  than  ever  since  the  Pacific  is  now  destined  to  be, 
through  the  mingling  of  Occident  and  Orient  under  the  new 
agency  of  the  United  States  the  theatre  of  the  next  great  act 
in  the  divine  drama  of  the  life  and  development  of  humanity. 

I  said  a  little  while  ago  that  the  expansion  of  American 
industries  and  capital  called  for  new  markets  in  another  world. 
And,  lo,  the  teeming  populations  of  the  Orient  liav-e  been  secured 
as  permanent  customers !  Let  us  enter  in  and  possess  this  vast 
commercial  estate.  But  you  must  study  the  needs,  the  senti- 
ments, and  the  prejudices  of  the  Oriental  and  give  him  exactly 
what  he  has  been  accustomed  to  and  what  he  wants.  Afterward 
you  may  try  new  departures ;  once  established  in  his  markets 
you  may  venture  with  novelties  to  create  new  wants ;  but  at  the 
outset  you  must  take  him  as  he  is  and  cater  to  his  tastes,  for  in 
no  other  way  will  you  secure  his  trade.  Considering  the  pre- 
eminence of  our  natural  resources  and  the  superiority  of  our 
skill  and  labor,  as  well  as  the  advantage  of  our  proximity  to 
Asia — for  China  is  just  across  the  "pond"  at  our  back  door, 
which  may  one  day  become  our  front  door — I  believe  that  no 
one  has  painted  in  too  roseate  hues  the  possibilities  of  commer- 
cial expansion  in  the  Orient.  Here  is,  as  it  were,  a  foreor- 
dained field  for  the  surplus  products  of  your  teeming  industries. 
And  it  opened  up  at  the  very  time  when  the  old  limits  were 
beginning  to  prove  oppressive. 

What  was  the  secret  of  our  success  in  compelling  European 
nations  to  stand  by  the  policy  of  the  open  door  in  China?  Some 
powerful  cause  there  certainly  was;  for  England  had  failed  in 
a  similar  attempt  only  two  or  three  years  ago.  We  should  not 
have  succeeded  at  that  time  either;  indeed  we  should  not  have 
essayed  the  task;  and  had  any  political  leader  suggested  it  he 
might  have  been  denounced  as  a  renegade  to  the  Monroe  doc- 
trine. But  in  the  short  space  of  two  years  the  political  horizon 
of  the  American  people  has  undergone  an  immense  expansion ; 
the  astonished  nations  have  seen  us  become  an  Asiatic  power. 
American  diplomacy  triumphed  in  China  because  the  American 
flag  waved  in  the  Philippines.  That  commercial  expansion 
which  the  marvelous  growth  of  your  capital  and  industries  had 
rendered  indispensable  to  the  continued  vitality  of  the  nation 

18 


was  heralded  by  the  roar  of  Dewey's  guns,  asserted  by  the  bril- 
liant feats  of  your  armies  under  Otis,  MacArthur,  and  the  heroic 
Lawton,  and  finally  established  and  secured  by  an  international 
agreement  which  will  render  this  administration  illustrious  in 
all  the  annals  of  American  diplomacy. 

We  waged  a  war — a  justifiable  and  righteous  war  if  ever 
there  was  one  in  history — for  the  liberation  of  Cuba  from  the 
yoke  of  Spanish  oppression.  And  into  our  reluctant  lap  the 
hand  of  destiny  dropped  the  Philippines !  Saul  went  out  to  seek 
his  father's  asses  and  found  a  kingdom.  It  was  our  aim  to 
drive  an  efifete  European  nation  from  the  American  continent; 
the  unavoidable  result  was  to  make  us  an  Asiatic  power. 

I  sometimes  think  that  the  greatest  events  in  history  were 
neither  intended  nor  desired  by  man. 

''There  is  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends 
Rough  hew  them  as  we  will." 

The  most  potent  factor  in  the  making  of  this  Republic  was 
the  acquisition  of  the  trans-Mississippi  territory.  Yet  Jeflfer- 
son  did  not  want  it ;  his  agents  in  Paris  apologized  for  taking  it : 
the  constraining  force  was  the  necessity  of  Napoleon.  I  sup- 
pose England's  greatest,  certainly  her  most  striking,  achieve- 
ment is  the  conquest  of  India.  Yet  we  have  the  word  of  Seeley 
for  it  that  nothing  great  done  by  Englishmen  was  ever  done  so 
blindly,  so  unintentionally,  so  accidentally.  In  reading  the  his- 
tory of  the  Roman  Empire  I  cannot  resist  the  conviction  that 
circumstances — not  infrequently  circumstances  of  a  physical 
character — had  as  much  to  do  with  the  rearing  of  that  vast  and 
imposing  fabric  as  the  policies  of  Roman  statesmen  or  the  vic- 
tories of  Roman  generals. 

I  should  be  the  last  man  alive  to  belittle  the  freedom  of  the 
human  will.  I  believe  it  is  a  divine  and  truly  creative  power  in 
man.  But  the  circle  of  freedom  is  small,  and  it  is  beset  at  every 
point  by  the  pressure  of  necessity.  You  are  free  to  do  a  particu- 
lar act  or  to  forbear;  but  if  you  do  it,  the  forces  of  nature  or 
society  sweep  it  beyond  your  control  and  beget  results  which 
perhaps  you  particularly  deprecate.  The  same  law  is  true  of  the 
doings  of  nations.  Two  years  ago  our  government  was  free 
to  hold  in  leash  or  to  let  loose  the  dogs  of  war ;  but  when  once 
a  decision  was  reached  and  the  fateful  word  spoken,  forces  and 
circumstances  beyond  the  reach  of  man's  will  largely  determined 

19 


the  course  of  the  conflict  and  the  nature  of  the  final  issue. 

You  must  test  men  and  nations,  not  by  their  capacity  to  con- 
trol the  forces  of  the  world,  but  by  the  courage  with  which  they 
face  their  destinies.  The  Philippines  came  to  us  as  an  unavoid- 
able result  of  the  war  with  Spain ;  we  have  accepted  them,  and, 
with  the  aid  of  Providence,  we  propose  to  discharge  our  respon- 
sibilities for  them.  We  never  dreamed  of  territorial  expansion 
when  the  war  began;  we  did  not  desire  it  when  the  war  closed; 
but  both  the  well-being  of  the  Filipinos  and  the  peace  of  the 
world  forbade  our  leaving  the  Archipelago  a  derelict  in  those 
eastern  waters,  the  sport  of  the  typhoons  and  earthquakes  of 
internal  and  external  politics,  and  imperiously  demanded  that 
where  Dewey  had  planted  our  flag  there  it  should  remain — the 
pledge  and  emblem  of  peace,  order,  prosperity,  and  liberty  en- 
lightening the  eastern  world. 

I  have  said  that  although  the  domain  of  the  United  States 
has  been  enlarged  in  consequence  of  the  war  with  Spain,  that 
enlargement  was  neither  intended  nor  desired  when  the  war 
began.  The  sole  object  of  the  conflict  was  to  end  the  long  and 
bitter  oppression  of  the  people  of  Cuba.  But  since  territorial 
expansion  has  followed,  we  are  not  dismayed  by  it.  We  rec- 
ognize that  v/e  live  in  an  age  of  empire-building.  Since  the 
downfall  of  Rome  no  such  mighty  empires  have  reared  them- 
selves on  our  planet  as  Britain  and  Russia.  The  one  extends 
through  half  of  Europe  and  Asia,  the  other  is  potent  in  all  the 
continents  of  the  globe.  And  this  Republic  of  ours — has  it 
dwelt  contentedly  within  its  ancient  limits?  Nay,  territorial 
expansion  has  been  the  law  of  its  life.  The  earlier  generations 
spread  from  the  Pacific  to  the  Alleghenies,  and  thence  to  the 
Mississippi  River;  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  in  1803  opened  up 
the  country  to  the  Rocky  Mountains  ;  next  followed  the  cession 
of  Florida  in  1819,  the  Texas  annexation  in  1845,  the  cession 
by  Mexico  of  the  Pacific  slope  in  1848,  and  then  the  purchase 
of  the  detached  territory  of  Alaska  in  1867.  Up  to  the  purchase 
of  Alaska  all  annexations  had  been  of  contiguous  continental 
territory ;  and  in  all  cases,  including  Alaska,  the  domains  an- 
nexed were  so  sparsely  settled  that  they  might  almost  be 
described  as  unpeopled,  and  they  were  immediately  occupied  by 
men  of  our  own  race  either  from  the  older  states  or  from  Europe. 
But  in   1898  we  annexed  Hawaii,  which  is  largely  peopled  by 

20 


Asiatic  and  other  alien  races.  No  American  who  has  stopped 
at  Honolulu  in  crossing  the  Pacific  will  regret  the  annexation 
of  this  unique  oceanic  emporium,  this  solitary  and  invaluable 
outpost  and  station  between  Asia  and  America.  It  is,  no  doubt, 
a  long  way  from  Plymouth  Rock  and  James  River.  But  the 
sons  of  the  cavaliers  and  Puritans  who  have  seen  the  nation  ex- 
pand from  those  far  eastern  foci  across  the  continent  and  half 
way  towards  the  Orient  cannot  be  expected  to  shed  tears  or  sit 
down  in  despair  because  the  flag  has  been  carried  to  the  coast  of 
Asia  and  now  waves  over  i,8oo  islands  and  is  big  with  blessing 
for  8,000,000  Filipinos ! 

The  expansion  of  the  United  States  has  furnished  a  new 
and  important  political  lesson  to  mankind.  Up  to  the  nineteenth 
century  it  was  universally  believed  that  vast  political  aggre- 
gates have  an  inherent  tendency  to  self-dissolution.  This  sup- 
posed law  found  confirmation  in  the  fate  of  the  most  extensive 
empires  known  to  history — the  empire  of  Trajan  and  Marcus 
Aurelius  and  the  empire  of  Alexander  the  Great.  But  if  we 
analyze  historical  causes,  instead  of  blindly  citing  historical 
precedents,  we  shall  see  that  there  are  two  principles  indispensa- 
ble to  stability  of  a  political  organism — local  home  rule  and  cen- 
tralized government — and  that  while  the  political  genius  of 
•  Rome  knew  how  to  secure  concert  of  action  even  on  a  gigantic 
scale,  it  sacrificed  local  self-government,  and  that  while  the  politi- 
cal genius  of  Greece  was  devoted  to  local  rights  and  liberties  it 
so  completely  identified  the  city  with  the  state  that  its  so-called 
empire  was  nothing  but  a  mechanical  aggregation  of  independent 
commonwealths,  which  made  permanent  concert  of  action  abso- 
lutely impossible.  Even  Aristotle  laid  it  down  that  the  state 
must  be  of  moderate  population ;  because,  "who  could  command 
in  war,  if  the  population  were  excessive,  or  what  herald  short  of 
a  Stentor  could  speak  to  them?"  Now  the  example  of  the 
United  States  has  shown  that,  thanks  to  steam  and  electricity 
which  abolish  distance,  the  modern  state  admits  of  unbounded 
territorial  organization  without  loss  of  supreme  control  at  the 
center  or  of  local  self-government  in  any  of  the  members.  The 
federal  organization  of  our  repubHc,  with  a  wise  distribution  of 
the  powers  and  functions  of  government  to  the  states  and  to  the 
Union,  is  the  explanation  of  this  miracle  in  politics.  And  it  is 
a  miracle  without  parallel.     For  though   the   English   colonies 

21 


enjoy  self-government  they  are  not  organized  as  integral  parts 
of  the  British  empire,  and  though  Russia  wields  a  strong  hand 
from  St.  Petersburg,  the  conglomerate  races  whicli  constitute 
the  Russian  empire  are  not  self-governing.  The  equipoise  be- 
tween central  sovereignty  and  local  independence  is  the  balance 
wheel  of  the  American  system.  This  is  our  contribution  to  the 
politics  of  the  world.  And  this  is  the  surest  guaranty  of  the 
permanence  of  our  Republic. 

Now  this  organization  of  the  United  States  under  which  un- 
bounded territorial  extension  may  be  reconciled  with  a  solid 
union  and  full  local  liberties  furnishes  the  solution  of  our  politi- 
cal problem  in  the  Philippine  Islands.  The  Commission,  of 
which  I  had  the  honor  to  be  president,  has  recommended  that 
the  Filipinos  be  given  a  form  of  territorial  government  more  lib- 
eral even  than  that  which  Jefiferson  bestowed  upon  the  people 
of  the  territory  of  Louisiana.  And,  as  Jefferson  wrote  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence,  I  should  think  that  every  one  might 
be  convinced  that  the  recommendation  of  the  Commission  was 
sufficiently  liberal.  The  President  has  adopted  this  recommen- 
dation and  is  making  arrangements  to  put  it  into  immediate 
effect.  Do  you  think  the  Filipinos  will  fare  badly  under  a  gov- 
ernment more  liberal  than  that  enjoyed  by  some  of  our  former 
territories?  Is  there  any  melting  heart  here  that  pities  a  people 
so  circumstanced?  Pity  a  people  you  have  redeemed  from  for- 
eign and  domestic  oppression !  Pity  a  people  over  whom  your 
flag  waves  with  the  blessings  of  freedom  and  civilization !  For 
my  part  I  can  only  congratulate  them  on  their  unparalleled  good 
fortune. 

Besides  the  mourners  and  pessimists,  however,  I  must  say 
a  word  about  the  Jingoes.  Now  the  Jingoes  are  a  sect  who 
hold  that  everything  is  ours  that  we  can  lay  hands  on,  and  that 
other  people  have  no  rights  which  we  need  respect.  Their  phil- 
osophy of  the  Philippine  question  is  exceedingly  simple.  It  is 
this :  Greed  in  their  own  hearts.  Gold  in  the  Philippines,  and 
God  in  heaven  to  satisfy  the  appetite  with  its  desired  object! 
The  inhabitants  of  the  Archipelago,  of  whom  there  are  some 
8,000,000,  never  enter  into  their  calculations ;  or  if  they  do,  it  is 
simply  as  material  for  exploitation  or  food  for  bullets.  Eight 
million  Filipinos  with  no  legal  or  moral  rights  that  we  need  con- 
sider!    Eight   million   immortal   souls   to   be   treated   as    mere 

22 


chattels !  Yet  this  is  the  gospel  of  the  Jingoes.  "Let  us  pass 
them  by/''  as  the  wise  guide  directed  in  regard  to  that  peculiarly 
repulsive  class  in  Dante's  Inferno.  Fortunately  their  number  is 
small,  and  the  American  people  will  in  due  time  punish  them  for 
their  infamy. 

The  instinct  of  expansion,  as  Matthew  Arnold  has  well  said, 
is  the  basis  of  human  civilization.  But  this  instinct,  though 
indispensable  to  any  progress  in  civilization,  would  if  left  to 
itself  yield  nothing  higher  than  the  supremacy  of  brute  strength 
and  cunning.  The  other  conditions  of  civilization,  the  claim- 
ants which  man  must  satisfy  before  he  can  be  humanized,  are 
virtue  and  piety,  liberty  and  justice,  knowledge,  art,  and  the 
power  of  social  life  and  manners.  If  we  are  a  civilized  nation 
our  mission  in  the  Philippines  must  be  the  promotion  of  this 
civihzation.  A  stronger,  and,  I  believe,  a  higher  will  than  ours 
set  us  in  that  distant  archipelago.  What  if  the  divine  purpose 
be  the  extension  of  our  free  institutions  and  of  all  that  is  best 
in  our  civilization  throughout  the  Orient?  As  the  object  of  the 
divine  government  of  the  world  seems  to  be,  according  to  Les- 
sing,  the  education  of  the  human  race,  what  if  we  are  called  to  be 
the  agents  of  that  purpose  in  the  Philippine  Islands?  I  know 
not.  These  themes  are  too  high  for  us.  But  I  know  and  you 
know  that  we  cannot  be  true  to  ourselves,  or  loyal  to  the  new 
obligations  that  have  come  upon  us,  unless  we  recognize  that 
this  last  expansion  of  our  Republic  is  a  summons  to  work  for 
the  material,  intellectual,  and  moral  elevation  of  the  Filipinos, 
to  teach  them  to  practice  in  ever-growing  measure  the  unwonted 
lessons  of  self-government,  and  by  so  doing  to  make  our  flag, 
which  is  already  the  symbol  of  irresistible  power,  the  star  of 
promise  and  the  emblem  of  benediction  to  all  the  oppressed  peo- 
ples of  the  awakening  Orient. 


23 


AriER  DINNER 

AT  THE  CLUB 


TOASTS 


The  Orator  of  the  Day, 

Response, 

Greater  America, 

Great  in  War, 

Lafayette, 

The  Old  Flag, 

The  East  and  West, 


The  President 

Hon.  Jacob  Gould  Schurman 

Genl.  W.  H.  L.  Barnes 

Rev.  William  J.  McCaughan 

Mr.  John  Maxey  Zane 

-     Hon.  Murray  F.  Smith 

Hon.  Timothy  L.  Woodruff 


24 


Introductions  of  the  speakers  by  President  Gary  and  their 
responses  to  the  several  toasts  were  as  follows  : 

THE  ORATOR  OF  THE  DAY. 

PRESIDENT  GARY:  Gentlemen  of  the  Union  League 
Glub:  In  introducing  the  speakers  this  evening,  I  shall  not 
deem  it  necessary  to  give  their  biographies.  If  they  are  orators 
the  fact  will  appear.  If  they  have  messages  for  you  they  will 
be  duly  delivered.  Of  the  orator  of  the  day,  nothing  that  I 
could  say  would  add  anything  to  your  appreciation  of  his  great 
performance  of  this  afternoon;  of  our  sense  of  the  honor 
and  service  he  has  done  us.  He  is  at  the  head  of  one 
of  the  great  educational  institutions  of  this  country,  an  institu- 
tion which  has  come  to  play  a  very  large  part  in  the  educational, 
and  I  may  say,  in  the  higher  sense,  the  political  life  of  this 
country.  I  esteem  it  a  fortunate  thing  that  the  heads  of  these 
great  educational  institutions  and  their  p'rofessors  are  coming 
to  take  an  active  part  in  public  affairs,  and  that  the  head  of  our 
nation  is  turning  to  them  to  find  fitting  representatives  of  this 
government  at  foreign  posts,  and  especially  when  service  requir- 
ing learning,  research  and  judicial  fairness  is  required.  I  think 
and  we  all  feel  that  President  McKinley,  in  inviting  our  guest  of 
the  evening,  the  orator  of  the  day,  to  stand  at  the  head  of  the 
Philippine  Gommission,  not  only  did  honor  to  himself,  but  great 
credit  to  the  country  as  well  as  great  service.  It  only  remains 
for  me  as  President  of  the  Glub,  in  your  behalf,  to  publicly  thank 
the  orator  of  the  day  for  the  honor  and  service  that  he  has  done  us 
this  day  and  by  being  with  us  this  evening.  I  take  great  pleasure 
in  again  introducing  to  you  Hon.  Jacob  Gould  Schurman. 

HON.  JAGOB  GOULD  SGHURMAN :  Mr.  President 
and  Gentlemen  of  the  Union  League  Glub :  I  do  not  feel  that 
I  should  be  expected  to  make  much  of  a  speech  this  evening. 
If  you  knew  how  I  enjoyed  this  delicious  dinner,  how  little  I 
have  thought  of  what  I  am  going  to  say  now,  I  do  not  believe 
you  would  want  me  to  occupy  much  of  your  time.  It  has  been 
a  good  dinner — a  delicious  dinner.  I  wish  it  had  been  pro- 
tracted. 

25 


I  think  of  a  speech  I  once  heard  a  great  orator  make.  It 
was  Wendell  Phillips.  It  was  my  good  fortune  to  hear  him  after 
I  had  heard  some  of  the  great  orators  of  the  English-speaking 
world,  Gladstone  and  Mr.  Spiirgeon,  whom  I  had  the  pleasure 
of  knowing,  and  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  It  was  a  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  oration  at  Harvard.  After  the  delivery  of  the  ora- 
tion there  was  a  luncheon  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  and  the  orator 
of  the  day -was  called  upon  for  a  speech.  It  is  a  number  of  years 
ago  now,  but  I  remember  very  distinctly  what  he  said.  He 
said  to  them :  'There  was  once  a  man  accused  of  murder.  The 
case  came  up  for  trial,  and  the  jury  were  ready  to  acquit  unani- 
mously, but  the  man  asked  permission  to  speak,  and  the  man  was 
convicted  of  murder  and  hanged."  Now  I  escaped.  I  escaped 
once  today.  I  have  had  an  exceedingly  kind  and  generous  set  of 
men  as  my  auditors  and  critics,  and  I  do  not  think  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, Mr.  President,  I  should  do  more  than  thank  you, 
sir,  and  the  members  of  the  Union  League,  for  the  great  pleasure 
which  I  have  enjoyed  in  visiting  you,  the  honor  that  it  has  been 
to  me  to  speak  under  your  auspices  and  the  generous  and  flat- 
tering reception  you  have  awarded  me ;  but  if  I  were  to  add  any- 
thing to  this  present  expression  of  thanks,  it  would  be  to  say 
that  the  toast  before  you  is  probably  not  in  reference  to  any  in- 
dividual, but  describes  rather  a  type.  The  orator  of  the  day,  of 
this  day — and  oh,  what  an  opportunity  he  has !  I  thank  God  I 
live  in  this  age.  There  has  been  nothing  hke  it  since  the  Civil 
War.  What  opportunities  there  will  be  for  oratory  in  the  next 
ten  or  fifteen  years.  But,  gentlemen,  for  oratory  you  need  the 
occasion  and  the  man.  I  do  not  find  that  Greek  oratory  flourished 
throughout  all  Greek  history.  It  flourished  in  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries  before  Christ,  when  the  Greek  state  was  undergoing  a 
great  revolution.  It  flourished  in  the  days  of  Sophocles  and 
Pericles.  It  flourished  in  the  days  of  Demosthenes,  who  sent 
out  his  fulminations  against  Philip,  because  Philip  was  under- 
mining the  liberties  of  the  Greek  cities  and  state.  And  I  do  not 
find  that  oratory  flourished  from  the  founding  of  the  city  of 
Rome  down  to  the  Close  of  the  Roman  Empire.  It  flourished 
when  the  provinces  were  oppressed,  and  Cicero  pronounced 
his  condemnation  against  the  oppressors.  And  I  do  not  find,  as 
I  read  English  history,  that  oratory  flourished  from  William  the 
Conqueror  to   the   eighteenth    century.        It   flourished   in   the 

26 


eighteenth  century  when  England  lost  the  American  thirteen 
colonies.    This  was  the  age  of  Pitt  and  the  great  English  orators 
whom  you  know.     So  that  I  believe  that  for  the  production  of 
an  orator  you  need  an  occasion ;    and  for  us,  believe  me,  the 
occasion  has  just  come.    I  think  it  is  Matthew  Arnold  that  com- 
plained  of  the  monotony  of  American  life;   everybody  looked 
alike;  everybody  read  the  same  newspapers;  the  cities  were  all 
built  alike.     Mr.  President,  we  have  brought  eighty-four    new 
tribes   under   the   American   flag   during   the   last   year!     The 
monotony  is  of  the  past,  but  oh,  what  a  variety  in  the  future! 
And  then  there  can  be  no  oratory  without  truth-telling.    I  heard 
from  a  colleague  of  mine  the  other  day  the  greatest  condem- 
nation I  ever  heard  of  an  oration.    A  man  made  a  speech  on  a 
certain  subject —  I  will  not  mention  what,  or  you  might  locate 
who  the  speaker  was — and  my  colleague  said  it  was  meant  to  be 
an  oration,  but  it  lacked  the  first  element  of  an  oration — sincer- 
ity.    There  is  no  oratory  without  truth.     The  man  who  wants 
to  be  an  orator  must  believe  something  and  be  determined  that 
other  people  shall  be  convinced  of  the  truth  that  is  burning  in 
his  own  heart.    And  the  orator  of  the  day  must  be  a  man  who 
sees  where  the  intellectual  and  moral  aspect  of  things  is  deepest 
in  human  nature.    It  is  conscience  that  makes  cowards  of  us  all 
when  we  do  wrong.    If  you  appeal  to  humanity  you  must  take 
men  on  the  moral  side.    That  is  what  made  Gladstone  the  power 
he  was  in  English  history  for  two  generations.     Conscience  may 
sometimes  get  strangely  twisted,  so  that  Carlyle  said  of  him: 
"The  trouble  with  Gladstone  is  that  he  is  all  conscience,  and  he 
can  make  anything  he  likes  a  matter  of  conscience."   That  is  a 
disaster  indeed,  but  there  can  be  no  oratory  without  conscience ; 
and  we  are  going  to  have  just  such  issues  in  right  and  wrong  in 
great  public  matters  during  the  next  few  years. 

It  is  to  be  settled  within  the  next  few  years  whether  we  shall 
treat  the  people  of  the  Philippine  Islands  and  the  people  of 
Puerto  Rico  justly  and  generously,  or  whether  we  shall  exploit 
them  for  our  own  convenience,  and  for  the  enrichment  of  certain 
classes.  The  cry  of  our  next  political  campaign  will  be,  ''Anti- 
ImperiaHsm"  and  "Anti-trust,"  and  I  beHeve,  sir,  with  reference 
to  Puerto  Rico,  that  President  McKinley  is  right,  and  that  Con- 
gress is  wrong. 

Perhaps  you  will  permit  me,  when  I  tell  you  I  am  a  Repub- 

27 


lican — perhaps  you  will  permit  me  to  say  that  I  see  no  such 
danger  before  the  Republican  party  in  the  forthcoming  cam- 
paign as  this ;  that  its  critics  will  say,  if  this  congressional  meas- 
ure now  pending  goes  through,  that  some  of  the  greatest  trusts 
of  the  country  went  to  Congress  and  forbade  it  to  pass  the 
humanitarian  and  equitable  recommendation  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States. 

We  hold  Puerto  Rico,  and  we  hold  the  Philippine  Islands  in 
trust  for  the  benefit  of  their  inhabitants.  We  are  now  on  trial 
before  the  forum  of  the  world.  The  world  has  witnessed  great 
experiments.  It  has  seen  England  lose  her  thirteen  colonies, 
now  the  United  States  of  America,  because  she  would  govern 
them  for  her  interests  and  not  for  theirs ;  and  we  shall  lose  and 
deserve  to  lose,  our  new  possessions,  unless  we  learn  to  govern 
them  in  their  interest  and  not  in  ours. 

But,  Mr.  President,  I  have  confidence  in  the  good  sense,  and 
in  the  sense  of  justice  of  the  American  people,  and  I  believe  that 
they  will  back  the  President  of  the  United  States  in  his  just  and 
equitable  recommendation  regarding  the  Island  of  Puerto  Rico. 

I  thank  you,  sir,  for  the  great  kindness  which  you  and  this 
Club  have  shown  me  during  my  stay,  and  I  will  ask  you  to 
drink  with  me  the  health  of  the  President  of  the  Club.  May  his 
reign  be  prosperous ! 


GREATER  AMERICA. 

PRESIDENT  GARY:  We  of  Chicago  are  accustomed  to 
look  upon  our  city  as  being  an  epitome  of  the  whole  country, 
in  its  courage,  energy,  enterprise,  marvelous  growth  and  varied 
characteristics,  but  you  will  remember  it  is  told  of  one  of  our 
chiefest  romancers  that  he  laid  down  and  died  of  a  broken  heart 
because  he  said  he  could  not  invent  a  lie  so  large,  about  Chicago 
that  it  did  not  fall  short  of  the  actual  truth.  If  to  do  justice  to 
Chicago  was  so  impossible,  even  with  the  aid  of  romance,  we 
can  well  appreciate  the  task  of  him  who  undertakes  to  speak  of 
the  whole  country,  of  which  Chicago  is  but  a  feeble  type.  We 
know  what  America  was  in  the  time  of  Washington,  and  with 
what  wide  vision  and  confident  hope  he  contemplated  its  ex- 
panded growth  and  glory.  What  the  "Greater  America"  of  to- 
day is  will  now  be  told  us  by  California's  famous  lawyer  and 

28 


orator  and  most  eminent  citizen,  Genl.  W.  H.  L.  Barnes,  of  San 
Francisco. 

GENL.  W.  H.  L.  BARNES:  Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen 
of  the  Union  League  Club  of  Chicago:  When  I  received  sev- 
eral months  since  the  invitation  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Commit- 
tee on  Public  Speakers  to  be  present  with  you  on  this  occasion, 
to-night  seemed  far  away  and  Chicago  a  vast  distance  from  the 
Pacific  Coast.  I  wondered  how  I  should  get  on  in  a  community 
whose  members  were  all  strangers  to  me ;  and  I  entered 
the  limited  train  that  passes  from  the  chief  city  of  the  Pacific 
Coast  to  this  pivotal  metropolis  of  the  nation  with  many  mis- 
givings. But  as  I  came  over  the  splendid  railways  that  connect 
the  western  ocean  with  the  great  lakes,  in  comfort  and  luxury; 
well  fed  all  the  way,  and  lying  down  at  night  to  rest  as  com- 
fortably as  though  I  was  under  my  own  roof  tree,  confident  that 
on  the  immense  machine  that  headed  the  train  was  one  of  those 
heroes  of  modern  transportation — the  American  engineer,  grimy 
as  a  soldier  in  battle,  blear-eyed  with  the  wind  and  rain,  with 
hand  upon  the  lever,  and  evermore  watching  the  perilous  thread 
of  the  rails,  I  was  proud  of  my  American  citizenship ;  and 
when  I  sat  to-day  in  your  magnificent  Auditoriiimand  looked  at 
an  American  audience  responding  with  such  intense  fervor  to 
the  splendid  orator  of  the  day,  I  was  no  longer  a  stranger,  for  I 
was  among  those  who  thought  as  I  thought  and  felt  as  I  felt, 
and  as  the  songs  of  liberty  rang  from  the  stage  and  throughout 
the  vast  assemblage,  and  I  heard  that  splendid  chorus  of  sound 
as  it  shivered  to  the  roof  of  the  great  building,  I  felt  myself  at 
home.  I  may  seem  a  stranger  to  you,  gentlemen,  but  you  do 
not  seem  strangers  to  me.  Thave  lost  the  sensation  of  the  emi- 
grant and  I  feel  already  as  though  I  were  native  to  the  snow  and 
slush  and  to  the  inclement  sky  that  has  been  over  us  to-day. 
When  I  left  the  land  of  flowers  and  fruit ;  when  I  traveled  out 
of  the  Sacramento  V^alley  where  the  summer  fallowed  grain  was 
already  nine  or  ten  inches  high,  and  where  the  hills  were  bloom- 
ing in  the  beauteous  splendor  of  the  crimson  and  yellow  wild 
flowers  of  California ;  when  I  saw  the  trees  budded  out  with  the 
promise  of  an  abundant  fruitage,  I  wondered  if  I  would  feel  cold 
in  a  Chicago  mid-winter,  but  I  have  had  no  chilly  moments.  I 
am  wearing  the  same  integuments  that  protected  me  from  the 

29 


balmy  breezes  of  California  and  have  gon,e  about  Chicago  with- 
out a  shiver.    I  think  my  heart  has  kept  me  warm. 

The  theme  allotted  to  me,  ''Greater  America,"  was  indeed 
great,  and  I  wished  I  were  equal  to  the  task  of  expounding  it. 
When  I  revert  to  the  history  of  this  continent,  not  merely  that 
of  its  later  settlement  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  but  to  those 
earlier  times  that  followed  the  daring  voyage  of  the  great  Gen- 
oese navigator  from  Palos  to  the  Bahamas ;  when  I  realize  what 
power  Spain  then  possessed ;  how  her  soldiers  and  sailors  in- 
vaded this  continent ;  how  De  Soto  marched  from  Florida  across 
the  lower  belt  of  the  southern  states  and  died  an  exile  upon  the 
banks  of  the  Mississippi ;  how  Cortez  landed  at  Vera  Cruz  and 
with  his  little  army  captured  the  Empire  of  Mexico,  where  the 
Spaniard,  remained  for  three  hundred  years  the  master  of  the  now 
awakening  Republic ;  when  I  remember  how  Coronado  and 
Corrillo  sailed  on  the  Pacific  Coast  further  to  the  north  than 
the  present  line  of  Oregon  and  never  saw  the  Bay  of  San  Fran- 
cisco; how  Magellen  circumnavigated  the  globe  and  gave  the 
name  of  his  king  to  the  archipelago  where  our  soldiers  are  now 
fighting  for  the  flag ;  when  I  remember  that  Sir  Francis  Drake 
at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  cruising  in  search  of  Span- 
ish merchantmen,  discovered  the  harbor  of  San  Francisco,  and 
from  a  rivulet  that  flows  to-day  back  of  that  Presidio  of  San 
Francisco  where  the  armies  of  the  nation  have  been  encamped 
w^ithin  the  last  two  years,  and  where  so  many  of  its  soldiers  are 
buried  in  an  already  overcrowded  cemetery,  filled  his  casks 
with  water  and  sailed  away  from  such  a  scene  and  never  thought 
enough  of  it  upon  his  return  to  his  native  land  to  mention  that 
he  had  discovered  such  a  bay;  when  I  remember  how  on  the 
Atlantic  Coast  the  Dutch  prosecuted  repeated  explorations,  and 
the  French  as  well,  I  recognize  that  it  was  manifest  destiny,  as 
the  orator  of  the  day  told  us,  that  the  Almighty  God  who  holds 
the  fate  of  mankind  in  the  hollow  of  His  divine  hand,  had  made 
a  reservation  upon  this  continent  for  the  English-speaking  race 
that  now  inhabits  it,  I  have  been  proud  to  feel  that  we  are  Ameri- 
can citizens  of  this  glorious  land. 

The  sentiment  speaks  of  ''Greater"  America.  At  what  period 
was  it  greater  than  another?  It  was  always  great  and  is  still  in 
the  comparative  degree,  Mr.  President;  not  yet  in  the  superla- 
tive, because  when  any  nation  is  greatest  and  its  tree  of  life  be- 

30 


gins  to  die  at  the  top,  the  age  of  its  decadence  and  weakness 
has  begun.  America  has  not  yet  reached  its  superlative  degree 
and  I  feel  it  never  will  until  the  banner  of  the  stars  and  stripes 
shall  at  last  be  furled  in  the  presence  of  the  banner  of  the  cross 
that  hangs  out  upon  the  battlements  of  heaven. 

It  was  a  great  America  when  Washington  went  to  Cam- 
bridge and  took  command  of  the  Continental  armies.  It  was 
great  when  the  mother  country  was  fought  to  a  standstill  upon 
the  ocean  and  the  Continental  armies  marched  victorious  from 
Bunker  Hill  to  Yorktown.  It  was  a  great  epoch  when  the  Treaty 
of  Paris  was  signed  and  the  United  States  of  America  was  recog- 
nized as  a  power  among  nations,  as  an  existing,  free  and  inde- 
pendent government  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Probably  the 
men  of  that  time  thought  that  the  recognition  of  our  Republic 
by  the  mother  country  was  a  signal  point  in  its  career  and  would 
remain  forever  the  greatest  subject  of  national  pride  and  con- 
gratulation. It  was  still  greater  when,  in  the  War  of  1812,  the 
young  Republic  for  the  second  time  challenged  the  British 
Empire  to  the  conflict  of  battle  and  on  sea  and  lake,  from  Balti- 
more to  New  OrleanSj  marked  new  fields  of  victory  and  made 
new  history  for  the  American  flag  and  American  principles. 
America  became  greater  when  Mr.  Jefiferson,  by  Treaty  with  the 
French  Emperor,  obtained  control  of  the  navigation  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi River,  yet  many  of  the  thinking  men  of  his  time  opposed 
the  policy  of  Jefferson ;  denounced  his  statesmanship,  and  hon- 
estly q.uestioned  the  capacity  of  the  American  Constitution  for 
extension  over  the  vast  territory  then  acquired. 

As  I  crossed  this  waterway  thirty-six  hours  ago  I  thought 
that  if  the  great  RepubHcan  had  yielded  to  the  pessimists  and 
the  timid  of  his  time — if  he  had  shrunk  from  taking  into  the  pos- 
session and  control  of  the  United  States  the  immense  territory 
of  Louisiana,  I  might  never  have  been  a  citizen  of  California,  and 
those  who  lived  on  this  side  of  the  Mississippi  looking  across  its 
waters  would  behold  a  long  line  of  fortresses  defended  by  the 
armies  and  guns  of  some  foreign  power  disputing  our  right  to 
travel  on  its  waters,  except  by  humiliating  treaties  with  it.  But 
who  doubts  now  that  Mr.  Jefferson,  by  the  Treaty  of  1803,  per- 
formed an  act  of  greatest  grandeur  and  almost  superhuman  wis- 
dom that  will  endear  his  name  to  posterity  as  long  as  there  shall 
be  upon  the  continent  a  remnant  of  the  race  that  now  inhabits  it  ? 

31 


It  was  greater  America  when  we  succeeded  in  driving  out  the 
Spanish  buccaneers  from  Florida  and  for  five  milHon  dollars  paid 
to  American  citizens  for  Spanish  spoliation,  acquired  the  title  of 
Spain  to  that  wonderful  peninsula. 

We  hear  a  good  deal  of  talk  to-day  of  the  crime  of  taking 
possession  of  foreign  territory  without  the  consent  of  its  in- 
habitants, or  its  acquisition  by  treaty,  yet  the  United  States 
government  was  compelled  to  resort  to  the  same  species  of  peace 
making  in  order  to  reduce  to  obedience  the  Seminole  Indians 
who  lived  in  the  swamps  and  everglades  of  Florida,  and  whose 
territory  we  took  by  treaty  with  Spain  without  asking  their 
permission.  It  cost  this  country  a  seven-year  war  to  pacify  the 
savages  and  in  one  battle  wdth  the  Seminoles  the  United  States 
army  had  more  men  killed  than  we  have  lost  in  any  one  conflict 
in  the  Philippines.  This  expansion  made  a  greater  America, 
and  it  became  still  greater  when  the  United  States  stretched  out 
its  arms  and  took  to  its  bosom  the  struggling  Republic  of  Texas 
and  drove  the  Mexican  back  into  his  own  country.  It  was 
greater  America  when  the  army  of  Kearney  started  from  Mis- 
souri for  an  eight  months'  march  of  a  thousand  miles  across  the 
continent,  and,  after  suffering  every  kind  of  hardship,  took  pos- 
session of  California. 

It  was  greater  America  when  Scott's  army  from  \'era  Cruz 
and  that  of  Taylor  from  the  Rio  Grande  River,  marched  to  the 
capital  of  Mexico  and,  after  an  unexampled  series  of  victories, 
dictated  the  terms  of  a  most  generous  peace.  Again  greater 
America  paid  for  the  land  she  had  conquered  the  right  to  occupy 
and  hold.  To  Mexico  the  United  States  paid  fifteen  million 
dollars  for  the  territory  north  of  Arizona  and  seven  millions 
more  for  what  we  acquired  by  the  purchase  concluded  by  Mr, 
Gadsden,  our  Minister  to  Mexico,  some  ten  years  later.  By 
reason  of  all  these  great  advances  and  struggles  the  United  States 
has  to-day  on  one  side  the  Atlantic,  and  on  the  other  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  It  was  a  great  day  for  America  when  Admiral  Dewey, 
in  obedience  to  the  order  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  to  search 
out  and  destroy  the  fleet  of  Spain  in  the  Philippines,  entered  the 
Port  of  Manila  and  made  the  "Olympia"  the  May  Day  Queen 
of  all  the  navies  of  the  world.  It  w^as  a  great  day,  too,  when 
Cervera  made  the  second  Spanish  discovery  of  America  on  the 
Southern  coast  of  Cuba,  and  1  pause  to  say  that  when  Admiral 

32 


Dewey  destroyed  ten  fighting  sliips  of  Spain  in  the  Bay  of 
Manila,  and  when  the  Atlantic  squadron  assailed  the  Cristobal 
Colon,  the  Maria  Teresa.  A'iscaya,  Almirante  Oquendo,  the 
Furor  and  Terror,  and  in  half  of  a  day  strewed  them  on  the 
Cuban  waters  like  the  wrecked  galleys  of  Antony  upon  the  shores 
of  Actium ;  took  eighteen  hundred  prisoners  ;  destroyed  eig4it 
hundred  lives  and  twenty,  million  dollars'  worth  of  Spanish  prop- 
erty, as  an  answer  to  the  dastardly  destruction  of  the  white  ship 
that  lay  at  a  peaceful  anchor  in  the  harbor  of  Havana,  I  ap- 
proved for  the  first  and  only  time  in  my  life  of  the  ratio  of  six- 
teen to  one. 

Who  wonders  that  the  American  nation  is  a  fighting  nation? 
Its  life  has  been  marked  by  struggles,  and  its  battlefields  are 
found  from  Canada  to  ^Mexico.  There  must  be  something  in 
.heredity,  for  never  since  the  sun  shone  upon  nations  have  armies 
more  brave  been  gathered  together  from  a  body  of  such  peace- 
loving  people  or  conducted  with  greater  skill  than  American 
armies  commanded  by  American  generals.  While  there  are 
other  peoples  wdio  exult  in  their  military  history  and  their  suc- 
cess in  arms,  yet  I  venture  to  say  that  if  the  war  now  going  on 
in  South  Africa  had  been  waged  by  an  American  army  and  led 
by  American  generals,  it  might  have  been  ended  three  months 
ago.  And  now^  shall  we  remain  confined  by  the  oceans  that 
wash  the  shores  of  our  country?  Is  the  fact  that  water  is  on 
either  side  of  the  continent  to  keep  us  forever  from  passing  over 
it  to  other  lands?  There  was  a  time  when  oceans  separated 
nations.  To-day  the  oceans  unite  rather  than  separate  them. 
Our  orator  said  to-day  that  time  and  space  have  been  annihilated 
by  steam  and  the  electric  cable.  It  takes  no  longer  to  send  a 
steamship  to  the  Philippines  than  it  does  to  send  a  ship  load  of 
passengers  from  San  Francisco  to  Dawson  City.  I  should  have 
spoken  before  of  the  territorial  acquisition  of  Alaska,  but  I  pause 
now  to  say  that  probably  no  statesman  of  his  or  any  other  times 
was  more  seriously  assailed  by  his  contemporaries  than  was  Mr. 
Seward  for  his  purchase  of  the  Territory  of  Alaska  from  the 
Imperial  government  of  Russia  for  a  consideration  of  seven 
million  two  hundred  thousand  dollars.  It  was  land  that  could 
only  be  reached  by  water ;  was  thousands  of  miles  away,  and 
frozen  within  the  arctic  circle.  Mr.  Seward  declared  it  would 
require  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  for  the  American  people 

33 


to  learn  to  appreciate  the  value  of  this  acquisition,  and  he  was 
right ;  for  it  is  to-day  only  begun  to  be  valued  at  its  true  worth, 
and,  indeed,  Great  Britain  has  been  almost  ready  to  go  to  war 
with  us  to  cut  out  of  it  a  harbor  where  its  Northwest  Territory 
can  reach  salt  water.  For  the  seven  millions  paid  Russia  for 
this  splendid  territory  the  United  States  and  its  citizens  have,  in 
one  way  or  another,  according  to  recent  reports,  realized  one 
hundred  and  forty  million  dollars  from  Mr.  Seward's  purchase, 
and  yet  hardly  an  indentation  has  been  made  by  American  enter- 
prise upon  its  soil.  Why  do  we  talk  of  distance?  Mr.  President, 
it  is  nearly  as  far  by  ocean,  through  Dutch  Harbor  and  the  coast 
to  Cape  Nome,  as  it  is  from  San  Francisco  to  the  Phihppines, 
and  yet  there  are  waiting  to-day  upon  the  shores  of  the  Pacific 
probably  sixty  thousand  men,  and  every  vessel  and  steamer  that 
can  meet  the  requirements  of  the  navigation  laws  is  waiting,  for 
the  breaking  up  of  the  arciic  winter  to  transport  this  volunteer 
army  of  civilization  to  the  shores  of  Alaska,  to  draw  from  it  the 
vast  wealth  it  is  ready  to  pour  into  the  lap  of  this  great  country 
of  ours.  Why  talk  of  distance?  The  pioneers  who  crossed  the 
deserts  from  St.  Joseph  to  the  mountains  of  California  left  there 
early  in  the  springtime  and  for  six  long  months  fought  their  way 
across  the  plains,  leaving  behind  them  more  bones  of  men  and 
animals  than  the  white-crested  waves  that  lift  themselves  be- 
tween us  and  the  Philippines.  I  was  proud  of  you,  sir  (turning 
to  President  Schurman),  when  you  said  that  where  the  flag  of 
our  country  has  been  planted,  so  far  as  you  were  concerned,  it 
should  forever  remain.  My  heart  responded  to  that  sentiment. 
No  American  citizen  loves  the  flag  of  his  country  more  than  I 
do.  To  me,  as  to  every  true  American,  the  national  ensign  has 
the  same  meaning  whether  its  white  stripes  stififen  under  the  pale 
coruscations  of  the  Arctic  aurora  or  its  red  bands  blush  a  deeper 
crimson  beneath  the  passionate  kisses  of  an  equatorial  sun.  To 
him,  wherever  it  is  borne,  from  State  to  Territory,  from  conti- 
nent to  archipelago,  from  the  fields  of  commerce  to  those  of  bat- 
tle, from  the  bright  day  of  prosperity  to  the  darkness  of  an 
adverse  night,  under  sun  or  stars,  it  speaks  a  single  language  and 
utters  a  solitary  prophecy.  As  to  the  rapt  vision  of  Constantine 
there  shone  in  the  heavens  the  sacred  emblem  of  humanity's 
redemption  and  above  it  a  sure  promise  of  victory  in  its  name — 
as  to  the  far  away  watchers  of  Natal's  beleaguered  city  the  elec- 

34 


trie  chirography  of  science  wrote  in  dazzling  characters  upon  the 
clouds  that  lowered  above  it  the  inspiring  message  that  all  was 
yet  well  with  those  who  waited  within  its  well-defended  trenches 
for  the  music  of  the  bugles  and  the  cannon  of  the  delivering 
hosts  of  England,  so  to  the  true  American  his  flag  is  the  perpet- 
ual symbol  of  his  abiding  faith  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of  liberty, 
justice,  religion,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  and  an  unfailing 
assurance  that  all  is  and  shall  be  forever  well  wherever  it  is 
found.  Wherever  the  flag  goes  there  we  go  and  with  it  the 
civilization  and  the  commerce  of  our  native  land.  I  wish  you 
could  see  the  wharves  of  San  Francisco.  I  can  remember  when 
it  was  a  sight  that  excited  almost  as  much  attention  as  a  band 
of  music  when  freight  was  carried  to  an  Orient-bound  steamer. 
To-day  every  Avharf  is  trembling  beneath  the  burden  of  American 
manufactures,  of  American  products,  American  flour  and  Ameri- 
can lumber.  The  mills  on  the  northwest  coast  have  to-day  for 
the  Orient  more  .orders  for  lumber  than  they  could  fill  if  they 
ran  exclusively  upon  these  orders  for  two  years  from  the  first  day 
of  January,  1900.  We  are  shipping  the  products  of  our  manu- 
factures— machinery  of  all  kinds,  furniture  and  food,  of  every 
description-^whatever  can  be  used  by  the  human  family.  In- 
deed, I  was  struck  the  other  day  with  astonishment  when,  look- 
ing at  one  of  those  new  Japanese  steamers,  to  see  that  she  was 
taking  on  board  for  Hongkong  hundreds  of  cases  of  Mellin's 
food  for  infants.  This  diet  may  be  the  progenitor  of  a  new  sys- 
tem of  nourishment  that  will  make  the  Asiatic,  sooner  or  later, 
sufficiently  well  fed  to  be  capable  of  American  citizenship.  In- 
deed, I  know  no  race  that  is  incapable  of  improvement  under  the 
American  system.  Our  nation  has,  since  1821,  assimilated, 
digested  and  made  good  citizens  of  millions  of  Irishmen,  and  a 
stomach  that  can  digest  them  can  take  care  of  anything.  I  do 
not  wish  by  this  to  be  understood  as  reflecting  upon  that  race, 
for  it  is  a  great  one.  It  has  done  its  own  and  England's  fighting 
for  two  hundred  years,  and  the  Irish-American  citizen  has  fought 
as  well  for  American  supremacy  as  if  he  or  his  progenitors  had 
come  over  in  the  Mayflower.  There  is  in  this  country  a  wonder- 
ful power  of  assimilation.  I  do  not  know  whether  it  is  through 
the  climate  or  the  political  constitution  of  the  country,  but  it  re- 
ceives and  Americanizes  men  of  every  race,  from  Sweden  to 
Java,  and  all  of  them  in  tim.e  become  good  citizens.    Therefore, 

35 


why  need  we  fear?  For  myself  I  do  not.  I  believe  in  our  in- 
stitutions. I  believe  in  the  boundless  capacity  of  our  system  of 
government  to  develop  and  nourish  all  that  is  good  in  man.  I 
passed  through  seven  States  of  the  United  States  that  I  might  be 
here  to-night.  Along  the  whole  route  there  was  no  line  of  de- 
markation  betw^een  them.  You  never  knew,  except  by  reterence 
to  the  railroad  guide  and  station  announcements,  that  you  had 
passed  from  California  to  Nevada,  from  Nevada  to  Utah,  from 
Utah  to  Wyoming  and  all  the  way  through  their  long  succession, 
for  it  was  one  united  country.  We  spent  a  million  lives  and  three 
thousand  million  dollars  to  decide  that  ours  was  a  united  and  in- 
divisible nation  and  when  the  controversy  was  settled,  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  struck  the  shackles  from  six  million  bondsmen,  we  set- 
tled the  race. question  forever;  and  I  beheve  the  American  peo- 
ple will  support  the  policy  that  has  been  pursued  and  is  now 
pursued  by  the  President  of  the  United  States.  I  am  sure  that 
in  the  section  from  which  I  come  you  cannot  find  a  single  pes- 
simist, if  I  except  President  Jordan  of  Stanford  University.  Our 
people  are  all  expansionists.  They  may  be  Republicans  or  they 
may  be  Democrats,  but  they  are  all  expansionists,  and  I  look  this 
year  to  see  a  vote  as  nearly  unanimous  for  Mr.  McKinley's  re- 
election in  our  part  of  the  country  as  was  given  to  Washington 
when  he  was  elected  President  of  the  United  States  for  his  sec- 
ond term. 

I  will  occupy  no  more  of  your  time  and  in  conclusion  I  give 
you  the  sentiment :  American  freedom,  justice,  liberty  under 
the  law,  and  the  flag  of  our  country  to  wave  until  its  field  shall 
be  so  crowded  with  stars  that  the  white  shall  obliterate  the  blue. 


GREAT  IN  WAR. 


PRESIDENT  GARY :  Whatever  may  be  said  of  Chicago's 
boastfulness,  she  has  never  been  found  boasting  of  her  spirit- 
ual pre-eminence.  Not  that  she  does  not  possess  it,  but  be- 
cause she  has  preferred  to  confine  herself  to  those  things  which 
can  be  seen  and  verified.  But  we  always  have  been  proud  of 
our  clergymen,  of  their  high  character  and  ability,  and  although 
many  of  them  have  been  snatched  away  from  us  from  time  to 
time,  by  New  York  and  Brooklyn  and  other  cities  in  their  reck- 

36 


less  and  hopeless  efforts  at  rivalry,  we  have  always  had  an 
abundant  supply  left,  for  we  have  made  reprisals,  and  have  some 
captures  of  our  own,  and  I  believe  it  is  true  that  these  captive 
clergymen  admit  that  in  their  captivity  here  they  have  enjoyed 
more  liberty  than  in  any  freedom  they  have  known  elsewhere. 
We  have  one  of  these  captive  clergymen  with  us  to-night,  and 
I  think  he  will  testify  that  he  has  come  among  an  appreciative 
people,  and  that  the  atmosphere  has  warmed  toward  him  into 
one  of  sincere  admiration  and  affection.  He  will  speak  to  us 
on  the  militant  theme  "Great  in  War."  I  do  not  know  but 
I  ought  to  say  to  him  that  the  preacher  here  is  not  required  to 
stick  any  more  closely  to  his  text  than  he  is  accustomed  to 
elsewhere.     We  will  listen  to  the  Rev.  William  J.  McCaughan. 

REV.  WILLIAM  J.  McGAUGHAN :  Mr.  President  and 
Gentlemen :  I  think  there  was  some  mistake  in  asking  me  to 
make  any  remarks  under  this  theme.  I  am  convinced  of  that 
for  more  than  one  reason,  because  to-day  I  find  that  the  Presi- 
dent and  the  other  members  of  the  committee  had  no  conception 
of  my  nationality  or  in  all  probability  I  would  not  have  been 
requested  to  speak  at  all,  for  they  decided  in  spite  of  my  protest 
that,  since  I  had  been  in  Chicago  somewhat  over  a  year  and 
was  neither  appointed  a  policeman  nor  elected  an  alderman,  I 
could  not  be  an  Irishman.  I  presumed  that  I  was  asked  by 
the  Secretary  to  speak  on  this  subject  because  it  is  supposed 
people  generally,  and  ministers  especially,  can  talk  best  on 
subjects  they  know  nothing  about.  He  added  in§ult  to  injury 
by  suggesting  that  I  should  discuss  some  modern  American 
generals  as  well  as  Washington.  He  evidently  imagmed  my 
powers  of  assimilation  were  in  proportion  to  the  powers  of 
assimilation  of  the  American  nation  if  he  thought  that  in  a  year 
I  had  got  sufificiently  accustomed  to  your  estimate  of  your  gen- 
erals to  be  able  to  contrast  them  with  the  founder  of  your 
nation.  I  disputed  long  and  seriously  whether  he  meant  me  to 
compare  him  to  General  Shafter  or  to  General  Otis.  However, 
the  subject  from  the  standpoint  of  a  Britisher  is  doubtless  a 
subject  we  look  at  in  a  different  way  from  that  in  which  you 
look  at  it.  Washington  as  a  soldier  possessed  certain  contra- 
dictory characteristics  not  often  found  combined  in  the  indi- 
vidual, and  that,  perhaps,  more  than  anything  else,  led  to  his 

37 


It  is  seldom  you  find  a  man  who  is 
reticent  and  at  the  same  time  competent  to  inspire  admira- 
tion, almost  adoration  in  his  fellow  men.  All  ^reat.  generals 
have  been  more  or  less  reticent.  Frederick  the  Great  said  if  he 
thought  his  nightcap  knew  his  plans  he  would  burn  it,  and  that 
has  been  the  characteristic  of  most  of  those  who  have  been 
successful  in  war.  But  their  very  reticence  has  frequently  been 
the  secret  of  estrangement  between  generals  and  their  soldiers, 
and  where  their  campaigns  have  been  lengthened,  the  relation- 
ship has  been  strained  and  there  has  been  wanting  that  perfect 
affection,  that  heroic  devotion,  which  the  Colonial  army  ever 
manifested  toward  Washington.  Not  only  did  this  reticence 
combine  itself  with  the  power  to  inspire  admiration,  but  you 
find  Washington  also  had  another  unusual  combination  of  char- 
acteristics. He  paid  remarkable  attention  to  details.  Many 
men  who  are  great  at  details,  when  it  comes  to  generalities,  are 
altogether  at  sea.  But  Washington,  like  Wellington,  was  a 
man  who  could  consider  the  smallest  things  as  well  as  the 
greatest,  and  the  concentration  of  his  attention  on  the  triviali- 
ties of  warfare  in  nowise  lessened  his  capacity  to  grasp  its  more 
vsignificant  movements.  In  other  words,  his  attention  to  the 
little  intricacies  essential  to  successful  campaigning  in  no  way 
assumed  too  great  a  place  in  his  consideration — were  not,  in 
other  words,  taken  out  of  their  true  perspective.  Wellington 
had  that  characteristic  when  in  his  Indian  campaigns  he  paid 
attention  to  every  detail,  and  it  was  said  had  studied  with  care 
the  smallest  things.  When  he  found  there  was  one  nail  extra  in 
each  horse's  shoe,  he  figured  out  how  many  tons  of  iron  that 
meant  extra  for  the  bullocks  to  carry,  and  ordered  it  to  be 
stricken  out.  That  was  an  incident  which  illustrated  his 
capacity  to  deal  with  detail,  but  it  in  no  way  lessened  Welling- 
ton's capacity  to  deal  with  the  larger  issues  essential  to  a  true 
general.  It  was  the  same  with  Washington.  There  are  many 
other  characteristics,  but  there  is  only  one  thing  more  to  which 
I  would  refer.  Few  nations  have  really  been  founded  by  war- 
riors who  can  look  to  their  founders  as  the  ideal  of  citizenship. 
Among  the  nations  of  the  world,  there  are  but  two — the  Ameri- 
can nation  and  the  Dutch  nation — that  can  look  to  the  founders 
of  their  nationality  as  men  who  can  be  held  up  to  their  youth 
to  be  imitated  in  all  departments  of  life.     Charlemagne  was  a 

38 


great  general  and  a  great  king,  but  no  one  wants  to  be  a  modern 
Charlemagne,  and  no  Frenchman  thinks  of  Charlemagne  as  an 
ideal  personality.  Peter  the  Great  did  much  for  Russia,  and  he 
was  great  in  many  respects,  but  who  wants  to  make  Peter  the 
Great  the  hero  of  his  home  ?  Who  wants  to  hold  him  up  as  the 
ideal  of  morality?  William  the  Conqueror  came  to  England 
with  his  invading  hosts.  He  was  a  successful  warrior  and  a 
wonderful  administrator.  He  proved  himself  the  founder  of  a 
great  monarchy,  but  who  wants  to  be  a  modern  William  the 
Conqueror?  Washington,  like  William  the  Silent,  Prince  of 
Orange,  stands  out  as  a  man  among  men  who  may  be  imitated 
in  the  camp  and  in  the  home,  in  war  and  in  peace,  in  the  coun- 
cil chamber  and  in  the  tent,  and  all  American  citizens  cannot  do 
better  than  strive  to  reincarnate  the  founder  of  their  nation  in 
every  generation  as  it  comes. 


LAFAYETTE. 


PRESIDENT  GARY :  It  is  told  that  one  of  Peru's  heroes 
had  so  endeared  himself  to  his  country  and  those  with  whom  and 
for  whom  he  fought,  by  service,  sacrifice  and  the  tragic  manner 
of  his  death  that  they  resolved  his  name  should  never  be  dropped 
from  the  roll  of  the  living.  Accordingly,  on  each  general  muster 
of  the  army,  his  name  is  called,  an  officer  steps  sharply  to  the 
front,  and,  pointing  upwards,  answers  : 

"Absent,  but  accounted  for.    He  is  with  the  immortals." 

So,  too,  when  the  name  of  Lafayette  is  called,  every  true 
American  heart  will  respond:  "He  is  with  the  immortals" — 
there  by  virtue  of  his  great  soul,  his  service  and  sacrifice  not  only 
for  us,  but  for  the  cause  of  liberty  and  popular  government 
throughout  th*e  world. 

No  one  contributed  more  than  he  by  service  here  and  influ- 
ence abroad  to  the  final  successful  issue  of  the  great  struggle  for 
independence.  No  one  was  nearer  to  Washington,  or  shared 
more  fully  his  confidence,  and  it  is  fitting  that  his  name  should 
have  a  place  in  every  celebration  in  honor  of  his  great  chief. 

The  youngest  General  of  the  Revolutionary  Army — a  Major- 
General  before  he  was  twenty  years  old — it  is  also  fitting  that 
the  toast  to  his  name  should  be  responded  to  by  the  youngest  on 

39 


our  list  of  orators — a  gentleman  who  is  a  new  comer  to  our  city, 
to  whom  we  extend  that  cordial  welcome  and  opportunity  with 
which  Chicago  always  greets  new  arrivals  of  genius  and  merit. 
I  name  Mr.  John  Maxey  Zane,  of  Chicago. 

MR.  JOHN  MAXEY  ZANE :  Mr.  President  and  Gentle- 
men of  the  Union  League  Club : 

The  coming  year  promises  to  see  a  statue  erected  in  the 
French  capitol  by  Americans  to  the  memory  of  Lafayette.  It 
will  be  another  instance  of  the  many  by  which  our  countrymen 
haA^e  shown  their  appreciation  of  his  character,  their  unfaiHng 
gratitude  for  his  zealous  labors  in  behalf  of  this  nation.  It  is 
especially  fitting  that  on  this  anniversary  we  should  remember 
this  man  of  an  alien  race  to  whom  Washington  gave  a  full  trust 
and  a  warm  regard.  Whatever  may  be  Lafayette's  shortcom- 
mgs  as  a  French  leader,  we  remember  him  as  the  benefactor  of 
America,  the  earnest  disciple  of  Washington.  What  American 
is  there  but  loves  to  recall  the  brave  youth  of  only  19  years, 
who  left  all  that  high  station,  ample  fortune  and  distinguished 
ancestry  could  give  him  at  the  most  splendid  court  in  Europe, 
in  order  that  he  might  cast  his  lot  with  us,  fighting  for  inde- 
pendence? His  eager  zeal  in  France  for  our  benefit,  the  wel- 
come succor  in  money  and  men,  the  army  of  Rochambeau,  the 
Beet  of  De  Grasse,  which  he,  more  than  any  other,  helped 
Franklin  to  gain  for  us,  his  faithful  and  devoted  service  as  a 
Revolutionary  soldier,  his  bleeding  body  borne  from  the  battle- 
field of  Brandywine,  the  skillful  generalship  of  the  campaign. in 
Virginia,  the  bravery  that  led  the  assault  at  Yorktown— these 
are  the  pictures  that  rise  before  our  minds,  and  fill  our  hearts 
with  tenderness  and  reverence  as  we  toast  his  memory  tonight. 

He  has  left  to  us  and  to  his  country  a  name  that  is  worthy  of 
veneration,  the  heritage  of  a  singularly  pure  and  disinterested 
life.  He  loved  liberty  for  itself  alone.  With  a  sympathy  as 
boundless  as  the  sea,  his  love  of  freedom  embraced  the  oppressed 
in  every  land.  He  liberated  his  own  slaves  at  Cayenne,  he  strove 
earnestly  to  abolish  servitude  in  all  the  French  colonies.  In  a 
day  when  every  Frenchman  seemed  given  over  wholly  to  self- 
seeking,  he  put  behind  him  the  proffered  power  of  dictatorship ; 
when  all  Frenchmen  were  taking  oath  one  day  to  support  what 
they  trampled  upon  the  next,  when  boastful  patriotism  was  too 

40 


often  "the  sole  refuge  of  the  scoundrel,"  he,  at  least,  was  faithful 
to  his  sworn  duty,  and  gave  his  whole  thought  to  his  country's 
service.  When  all  France  a  little  later  was  fawning  before  the 
victorious  Corsican  soldier,  he  alone  refused  the  splendid  rewards 
of  wealth  and  high  command  which  were  lavished  upon  the 
marshals  of  the  empire.  And,  strangest  thing  of  all,  in  an  age 
of  universal  corruption  of  manners  and  more  than  French  loose- 
ness of  morals,  he  was  that  profoundly  curious  being — a  French- 
man who  respected  the  seventh  commandment,  a  Frenchman 
of  manly  morality  and  domestic  virtue. 

Born  a  member  of  a  privileged  order,  a  noble  of  vast  wealth, 
and  allied  to  the  highest  families  in  France,  he  gave  himself 
freely  to  the  cause  of  the  poor  and  the  oppressed.     He  offered 
his  rank,  his  wealth,  almost  his  life,  as  a  sacrifice  to  that  cause. 
Sad,  indeed,  is  it  to  recall  the  issue  for  him  of  the  Revolution, 
which  began  under  such  happy  auspices  and  which  he  did  so 
much  to  further.     When  that  awful  reservoir  of  France,  in  which 
were  gathered  the  turbid  waters  of  the  rage,  the  hate,  the  bru- 
tality, the  vengeance  of  centuries  of  oppression,  burst  its  bounds 
it  swept  away  beneath  its  flood  all  that  was  best  and  purest  and 
noblest   in   national   life.       The   blood-stained   miscreants   who 
gained   control,   the  atheists   who  masqueraded  as  priests,   the 
savage  madmen  who  ruled  as  law-givers,  knew  neither  pity,  nor 
mercy,  nor  remorse,  but  butchered  alike  the  high-souled  patriot, 
the  blameless  magistrate,  the  enlightened  scholar,  the  little  chil- 
dren, the  tender  and  helpless  women.     Fleeing  from  these  mon- 
sters of  cruelty,  Lafayette  fell  into  the  clutches  of  the  Austrian. 
Even  his  enemies  felt  compassion  for  those  long  years  of  suffer- 
ing in  the  dungeon  of  Olmutz.     Liberated  at  last,  he  came  back 
to  France,  to  live  under  a  more  imperious,  a  more  heartless 
despotism  than  any  Bourbon  had  ever  inflicted  upon  that  un- 
happy  country.     Bourbon   succeeded  Corsican,   but  no  ray  of 
hope  ever  came  to  cheer  the  desolate  home  where  Lafayette  sat 
in  obscurity  and  poverty,  his  very  name  despised  by  the  fickle 
race  whom  he  had  served  so  well.     It  is  true,  as  Lowell  sings : 
''Count  me  o'er  earth's  chosen  heroes, — they  were  souls,  who 
who  stood  alone. 
While  the    men  they  agonized    for  hurled  the    contumelious 
stone." 
But  in  this  country  across  the  seas,  his  branch  had  not  with- 

41 


ered.     It  is  a  common  saying  that  republics  are  ungrateful,  but 
m  one,  at  least,,  the  saying  is  untrue.     Americans  had  never  forr 
gotten  Lafayette's  services  to  them.     In  the  dark  days  of  the 
Terror,  while  he  was  buried  in  a  dungeon,  his  fortune  confis- 
cated, and  his  family  reduced  to  destitution,  the  American  Min- 
ister to  France,  Gouverneur  Morris,  placed  the  prisoner  above 
want,  and  to  Madam  Lafayette  and  her  family  gave  the  grateful 
assistance  of  ample  means.     And  when  this  gentle  lady  was  cast 
into  prison  and  about  to  be  hurried  to  the  guillotine,  which  had 
drunk  the  blood  of  her  mother  and  grandmother,  it  was  the  same 
Minister  who  saved  her  life  from  the  savage  leaders  of  republican 
France.     During  those  same  years,  the  son  was  provided  for  in 
this  country  at  the  home  of  Hamilton,  and  at  Mount  Vernon. 
No  effort  was  spared  by  our  foreign  ministers  to  secure  Lafay- 
ette's release  from  prison.     It  may  not  be  known  to  some  of  us 
that  he  was  carried  until  his  death  upon  the  rolls  of  our  army  as 
a  Major-General.     President  Jefiferson  offered  him  the  post  of 
Governor  of  the  newly  purchased  Territory  of  Louisiana.     Many 
square  miles  of  land  were  given  him  near  where  New  Orleans 
now  stands.     Finally,  after  long  years,  he  revisited  the  land  to 
which  he  had  given  his  youth,  and  found  solace  in  the  knowledge 
that  he  was  not  forgotten.     He  was  showered  with  the  gifts  of  a 
nation's  gratitude — broad  lands  and  moneys  in  amplest  measure. 
He  passed  from  city  to  city,  from  state  to  state,  the  nation's 
guest,  everywhere  received  with  enthusiastic  affection.     He  lis- 
tened to  the  eloquent  greetings  of  finished  orators.     He  heard 
from  the  lips  of  the  polished  Everett  "that  throughout  America 
there  is  not  a  bosom  which  does  not  beat  with  joy  and  gratitude 
at  the  sound  of  your  name."     Daniel  Webster  paused  in  the  full 
tide  of  his  whole  oratory  at  Bunker  Hill  to  say :     *'We  have  all 
of  us  long  ago  received  it  in  charge  from  our  fathers  to  cherish 
your  name  and  your  virtues."     After  this  splendid  outpouring 
of  national  gratitude  he  returned  to  his  native  land  to  find  that 
he  had  again  become  an  object  of  affectionate  interest  to  his  own 
people,  and  to  hold  for  the  remainder  of  his  life  an  honored  place 
in  his  country's  councils.     Called  to  head  another  revolution,  he 
established,  without  bloodshed,  what  he  believed  was  a  stable 
government,  and   died  filled  with  the  hope  that  under  Louis 
Philippe  his  distracted  country,  after  years  of  misery,  had  found 
peace.     Yet  a  few  years  and  France  was  again  to  pass  from 

42 


revolution  to  anarchy,  from  anarchy  to  miHtary  despotism,  from 
despotism  to  ruin,  and  again  the  rule  of  the  ferocious  mob. 
Truly,  the  life  and  sacrifices  not  of  Lafayette  alone,  but  of  many 
another  French  patriot,  seem  to  have  been  made  in  vain. 

Lafayette  had  many  and  great  virtues,  but  we  would  not  be 
faithful  to  his  memory  did  we  not  recognize  that  he  made  one 
great  mistake.  It  may  be  that  men  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  blood 
and  men  of  the  serious  Germanic  races  generally  cannot  truly 
sympathize  with  the  fickleness,  the  frivolity,  the  bombast  of 
French  character.  The  lack  of  steadiness  and  balance,  the 
boastfulness  in  victory,  the  utter  despair  in  defeat,  the  latent 
savagery  when  the  bonds  are  loosed,  that  disfigure  the  national 
character  of  Frenchmen,  have  been  emphasized  in  the  century 
that  is  now  passing  away.  Lafayette  had  seen  in  this  country 
the  self-control  under  victory,  the  steadiness  under  defeat,  which 
is  our  English  heritage.  He  had  seen  the  love  of  law  and  order, 
the  respect  for  personal  freedom,  the  protections  thrown  around 
the  individual  and  his  rights  and  property  as  against  the  govern- 
rnent,  which  is  the  tradition  of  Anglo-Saxon  liberty.  He  had 
seen  the  actions  of  a  people  who  were  fit  to  be  free;  and  with 
that  crude  theorizing  which  was  the  French  fashion  one  hundred 
years  ago,  he  fondly  trusted  that  every  people  needed  but  the 
benefits  of  freedom  to  show  itself  worthy  of  that  great  trust.  In 
this  he  was  mistaken,  and  utterly  misled.  We  have  learned  from 
experience  that  freedom  can  be  grossly  abused,  that  numberless 
crimes  can  be  committed  in  the  name  of  liberty,  and  that  a  gov- 
ernment may  call  itself  a  republic  and  yet  be  a  more  ruthless 
despotism  than  Russia  under  the  Czars.  Even  in  our  own 
blessed  land,  the  utter  collapse  of  universal  suffrage  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  large  cities,  and  the  pillage  of  our  municipalities  by 
the  corrupt  dispensers  of  municipal  plunder,  have  not  left  think- 
ing men  that  serene,  complacent  faith  in  majority  rule  which 
they  would  be  glad  to  cherish.  To  use  an  illustration  of  today,  it 
will  be  admitted  by  everyone  except  the  blustering  demagogues 
or  the  dreamy  doctrinaires  that  this  nation  would  be  guilty  of  an 
unpardonable  crime  against  civilization  should  it  leave  Cuba  or 
the  Philippines  to  the  chaos  of  self-government.  But  France 
was  little  more  fitted  for  a  republican  form  of  government  in 
1789  than  are  the  Cubans  and  Filipinos  today.  Liberty  is  worthy 
of  the  name  only  when  it  is  joined  with  order,  with  justice,  with 

43 


mercv,  with  civilization.     This  is  the  true,  the  beautiful  Flower 
of  Liberty. 

''The  blades  of  heroes  fence  it  round 
Where'er  it  springs  is  holy  ground." 
A  government  in  France  republican  in  form  was  reduced  to  the 
hideous  tyranny  of  Robespierre.  The  ridiculous  antics  of  the 
French  Assembly  disgusted  faithful  friends  of  freedom  such  as 
Washington.  Their  unprovoked  assaults  upon  this  country 
brought  us  to  the  verge  of  war,  and  called  Washington  from 
Mount  Vernon  to  head  again  the  armies  of  the  United  States. 
A  howling  mob  of  filthy  rabble  in  the  gallery  dictated  the  de- 
crees of  the  French  chamber.  Foreign  ministers  were  com- 
pelled to  present  their  credentials  upon  the  floor  of  the  Assem- 
bly, and  were  there  given  the  fraternal  embrace  by  the  presiding 
officer,  and  ignominiously  kissed  upon  both  cheeks  by  that 
wretched  functionary.  Such  travesties  recall  the  emphatic  ob- 
jection of  our  celebrated  fellow  townsman  Dooley  to  French 
procedure :  "No  man  shall  kiss  me,  Hennessy,  and  live."  Min- 
isters of  war,  of  the  marine,  of  justice,  and  of  foreign  afifairs  were 
appointed  by  vote  taken  at  the  command  of  the  uproarious  gal- 
lery. Some  blatant  demagogue  who  had  never  seen  a  cannon 
or  a  ship  found  himself  minister  of  war  or  of  the  navy.  Their 
talk  of  the  sacred  rights  of  man  was  the  merest  pretense.  The 
very  slaves  whom  Lafayette  liberated  were  confiscated  and  sold 
again  into  slavery.  In  some  mysterious  way  it  came  to  be  be- 
lieved in  France  that  any  riotous  mob,  burning  and  killing,  was 
the  French  people  engaged  in  governing  itself.  The  refusal  to 
shoot  at  a  mob  was  then,  as  it  is  today,  the  besetting  weakness 
of  France.  When  the  savage  Parisian  populace,  the  depraved 
men  and  abandoned  women  of  a  great  city,  burst  into  the  palace 
of  Versailles,  while  Lafayette  with  his  army  was  solemnly  guard- 
ing the  place,  it  was  no  doubt  a  thoroughly  French  performance 
for  Lafayette  to  lead  forth  the  Queen  upon  a  balcony  and  appease 
the  mob  by  kissing  her  hand,  but  he  would  have  been  a  manlier 
spectacle  had  he  been  at  the  head  of  his  troops  mowing  down 
the  mob  with  cannon.  Yet  the  army  was  little  better  than  the 
mob.  Lafayette  complained  to  Morris  that  he  thought  his 
troops  would  follow  him  into  battle,  but  he  could  not  induce 
them  to  mount  guard  when  it  was  raining.  Can  it  be  strange 
that  France  passed  through  her  fearful  deluge  of  blood,  until  an 

44 


iron  soldier  came  to  deliver  her  from  her  abject  condition  and 
restore  order?  These  are  the  lessons  which  are  written  in  blood 
for  our  guidance  today  in  governing  peoples  incapable  of  gov- 
erning themselves. 

**New  occasions  teach  new  duties,  time  makes  ancient  good~ un- 
couth ; 
We  must  upward  still  and  onward,  who  would  keep  abreast  of 
truth." 
It  surely  is  not  unbecoming  in  us  to  recognize  that  Lafayette 
was  not  equal  to  the  crisis  when  he  held  in  his  hand  the  destinies 
of  France.  There  is  no  sadder  or  truer  saying  than  "many  are 
called,  few  are  chosen."  His  mistake  lay  in  not  recognizing  that 
no  government  is  fit  to  exist  unless  it  can  make  its  authority 
paramount  in  preserving  an  orderly  administration  of  the  law. 
This  may  be  an  excuse  for  the  fact  that  Frenchmen  have  never 
shown  much  appreciation  of  Lafayette's  essential  nobleness  of 
soul.  For  a  few  years  after  his  death  a  sort  of  fountain  or  pump, 
dribbling  intermittently  a  little  stream  of  water,  stood  in  the 
Avenue  des  Invalides.  It  was  crowned  with  a  bust  of  Lafayette. 
But  in  1840  v/hen,  with  vast  pomp,  the  ashes  of  the  great  Na- 
poleon were  brought  from  St.  Helena  to  repose  in  the  sarcopha- 
gus of  gilt  and  marble  beneath  the  magnificent  dome  of  the 
Invalides,  the  fountain  and  the  bust  were  thrown  into  a  celhr  in 
order  that  they  might  not  impede  the  triumphant  progress  of  the 
mighty  procession.  Even  as  the  great  Corsican  trampled  upon 
Lafayette  living,  so  the  ashes  of  "Imperious  Caesar,  dead  and 
turned  to  clay,"  thrust  aside  the  sole  memorial  of  the  onlv 
Frenchman  who  had  the  courage  to  withstand  him. 

But  we  may  all  try  to  indulge  the  hope  that,  after  many,  many 
years,  even  after  her  last  frightful  debauch,  France  is  forgetting 
her  love  of  military  despotism,  and  is  gaining  some  measure  of 
self-control.  To  that  tendency  Americans  will  contribute  by  the 
erection  of  a  statue  to  recall  to  France  the  life  of  one  of  her 
purest  and  most  unselfish  sons.  His  image,  "graven  by  a  cunning 
hand,"  is  to  stand  within  the  precinct  of  the  stately  palace  of  the 
Louvre,  near  by  those  walls  which  inclose  so  much  that  is  illus- 
trious and  ennobling  in  human  effort  in  the  world  of  art.  His 
body  lies  in  its  humble  place  by  the  side  of  his  faithful  wife, 
whose  life  is  such  a  touching  "tale  of  woman's  devotion,"  who 
came  to  his  lonely  dungeon  to  cheer  its  gloom,  and  passed  such 

45 


years  of  privation  and  horror  there  that  she  came  forth  a  broken 
woman,  doomed  soon  to  pass  to  an  early  grave.  Beside  that 
grave  it  is  fitting  that  Lafayette's  tomb  should  remain,  there  his 
fame  like  the  memory  of  all  just  men  shall  blossom  in  the  dust ; 
but  his  statue  standing  in  the  greatest  of  all  the  glittering  cap- 
ital's great  places  will  serve  as  a  lesson — an  eternal  lesson — to 
Frenchmen,  that  one  of  the  greatest  of  them  remained  faithful, 
while  the  chosen  ministers  at  freedom's  altar  betrayed  her;  an 
eternal  lesson  that  a  man  to  be  truly  revered  should  disregard 
the  ghttering  bribes  of  title,  of  wealth,  of  selfishness  and  power, 
and  live  nobly  for  noble  ends ;  an  eternal  lesson  that,  the  rights 
of  the  humblest  or  the  highest  citizen  are  not  less  because  his 
liberty  or  his  life  is  demanded  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  madness  of 
the  hour  and  the  clamor  of  the  deluded  multitude.  There  let  us 
hope  they  may  ponder  upon  Lafayette's  courage,  his  self-devo- 
tion, his  unrequited  sacrifices,  his  zeal  for  freedom,  for  justice, 
for  the  happiness  of  his  country,  there  they  may  meditate  upon 
the  life  of  many  another,  such  as  he,  pure,  stainless  and  devoted 
son  of  France, 

''*     *     *     till  the  place 

Becomes  religion,  and  the  heart  runs  o'er 

With  silent  worship  of  the  great  of  old. 

The  dead  but  sceptered  sovereigns,  who  still  rule 

Our  spirits  from  their  urns." 


THE  OLD  FLAG. 

PRESIDENT  GARY  :  Gentlemen  :  The  next  toast  is,  "The 
Old  Flag" — not  "the  old  flag  with  an  appropriation" — that  is 
not  our  motto — but  the  Old  Flag  whose  other  name  is ,  Old 
Glory.  The  flag  which  is  now  the  emblem  of  liberty  and  union 
at  home,  power  abroad,  and  of  justice  and  humanity  everywhere  ; 
a  flag  which  knows  no  defeat,  and  whose  history  conveys  no 
suggestion  of  surrender,  cowardice,  or  shrinking  in  the  presence 
of  any  duty  or  responsibility  which  the  march  of  events  or  the 
outcome  of  war  may  bring  or  has  brought. 

This  toast  will  be  responded  to  by  a  gentleman  from  Vicks- 
burg — historic  Vicksburg,  where  brothers  fought  against  broth- 
ers, not  in  anger,  but  for  a  cause  each  had  made  his  own,  and 
the  courage,  valor  and  persistence  which  each  displayed  there 

46 


only  illustrated  how  invincible  and  irresistible  they  would  be 
when  joined  as  now  in  a  common  fealty  and  how  safe  this  flag 
will  be  in  their  common  guardianship  and  keeping. 

I  introduce  one  of  the  South's  famous  orators — Hon. 
Murray  F.  Smith. 

HON.  MURRAY  F.  SMITH:  In  responding  to  the 
toast  of  'The  Old  Flag,*'  the  emblem  of  the  great  coun- 
try over  which  it  waves  at  this  impressive  period  of  the 
nation's  life,  the  close  of  one  century  and  the  beginning 
of  another,  our  thought  naturally  dwells  on  a  comparison  of  the 
conditions  which  now  prevail  with  those  at  the  dawn  of  the  last 
century.  At  that  time  we  had  barely  launched  our  government, 
admittedly  an  experiment,  and  so  feeble  were  the  ties  that  bound 
the  states  to  the  Union  that  threats  were  constantly  made  that 
this  or  that  measure  was  in  violation  of  the  compact,  and  if 
insisted  upon,  that  some  state  dissatisfied  therewith  would  with- 
draw from  the  Union.  Hardly  a  session  of  Congress  passed 
without  some  senator  or  representative  indulging  in  such  threats, 
and  commencing  with  the  Hartford  convention  and  coming  down 
to  the  resolutions  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  upon  the 
admission  of  Texas  into  the  Union  in  1845,  this  doctrine  was 
unhesitatingly  announced. 

There  could  be  but  one  result  from  such  a  formative  condi- 
tion— a  trial  of  the  question  that  so  vexed  our  early  history  was 
inevitable.  Hence  we  had  secession ;  war  followed,  the  Union 
was  saved,  and  our  flag  at  last  floated  over  an  indissoluble  Union, 
composed  of  indestructible  states.  The  latent  spirit  of  national- 
ism awoke  to  new  life.  We  have  ceased  to  look  with  fear  upon 
the  growth  of  the  nation.  We  have  relegated  to  the  past  the 
idea  that  this  growth  in  some  way  imperils  the  rights  of  the  states 
and  thereby  endangers  the  liberties  of  the  citizen.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  tendency  now  is  rather  to  look  to  the  nation  to  sup- 
press evils  the  suppression  of  which  properly  belongs  to  the 
states. 

We  are  today  a  nation  in  the  fullest  and  broadest  sense  of  the 
word.  There  lives  not  within  the  borders  of  any  state  a  single 
citizen  who  does  not  thank  God  that  this  condition  exists.  Everv 
citizen,  when  he  glances  aloft  and  sees  our  national  flag,  beauti- 
ful in  its  simplicity  and  marvelously  appropriate  in  design,  feels 
the  blood  quicken  in  his  veins  and  involuntarily  recalls  its  glo- 

47 


rioiis  and  ineffaceable  history,  a  history  that  tells  of  no  wanton 
aggression,  no  cruel  tyranny,  but  of  a  steadily  increasing, 
happy  and  contented  citizenship. 

The  century  just  past  has  taught  us  other  lessons  besides 
that  of  nationalism.  Out  of  all  the  discussions  of  the  multitude 
of  questions  arising  in  the  past,  and  involving  the  policv  of  the 
nation  from  time  to  time,  history  will  show  that,  in  the  main,  the 
questions  have  been  in  the  end  rightly  settled.  The  sober  sec- 
ond thought  of  the  American  people  has  in  the  past  been  uner- 
ringly right,  and  we  can  look  to  the  future  with  absolute 
confidence  that  this  nation  will  do  the  right  thing  at  the  right 
time. 

There  has  never  been  a  crisis  in  our  history  in  the  last  hun- 
dred years  that  numbers  of  able,  earnest  and  patriotic  citizens 
have  not  predicted  dire  disaster  to  the  country  if  some  certain 
course  should  be  pursued.  Nevertheless  the  people  have 
thought  for  themselves,  disregarded  these  prophecies  of  evil, 
and  time  has  vindicated  the  wisdom  of  their  decision.  Tolerance 
for  difference  of  opinion  exists,  because  out  of  this  difference 
arises  discussion,  and  out  of  discussion  right  results  have  been 
achieved.  Thus,  as  the  result  of  this  one  hundred  years'  expe- 
rience, we  have  a  nation,  great,  powerful  and  expanding,  gov- 
erned by  a  people  ripe  in  experience  and  with  precedents  to 
guide  them  in  any  emergency,  approved  by  the  test  of  actual 
experience. 

I  do  not  assert  that  there  are  no  conditions  which  might  not 
be  changed  for  the  better,  that  mistakes  have  not  been  made, 
but  what  I  do  assert  is  that  as  experience  shows  the  necessity  of 
change,  discussion  of  the  measure  of  this  necessity  increases, 
tolerance  is  exercised,  and  finally  the  change  is  made  if  the  peo- 
ple are  convinced  that  the  welfare  of  the  nation  demands  it.  It 
will  not  do  to  assert  that  we  are  infallible ;  that  mistakes  have 
not  been  made  in  the  adjustment  of  crises  which  have  risen  up 
for  us  to  master.  In  that  greatest  of  all  the  tests  of  our  talent  for 
just  ancl  enduring  legislation,  in  time  of  passion  and  strife,  the 
reconstruction  of  the  Union  harmoniously  with  the  arbitrament 
of  arms,  it  was  no  more  than  natural  that  the  pendulum  should 
swing  too  far.  The  proof  that  it  did  this  is  found  in  the  com- 
monly noted  and  deplorable  fact  that  the  old  slave  states  were 
left  in  a  condition  which,  to  this  day,  creates  a  great  gulf  in  the 

48 


way  of  independence  of  political  thought.  My  faith  in  the  ge- 
nius of  the  people  inspires  me  to  think  and  hope  that  the  time  is 
approaching  when  a  change  will  be  made  which  will  relieve  the 
South  from  a  condition  which  places  bonds  upon  thought,  har- 
rows the  scope  of  discussion  of  public  questions,  and  absolutely 
prohibits  independence  in  political  conduct.  Thirty  years  ago, 
in  the  heat  of  excitement  engendered  by  a  great  civil  war,  for 
the  first  time  the  Federal  Constitution  undertook  to  fetter  the 
states  in  the  matter  of  suffrage.  The  result  of  this  has  been 
that  in  the  South  a  vast  majority  of  the  intelligent  and  best  citi- 
zens of  that  portion  of  the  Union  are  forced  to  act  and  vote  with 
one  party.  It  will  not  do  to  say  that  this  cannot  last,  for  it  has 
lasted  for  thirty  years,  and  speaking  from  personal  observation 
and  experience,  I  say  I  see  no  chance  for  a  change,  so  long  as 
the  fundamental  law  remains  as  it  now  is.  The  citizen  is  as 
much  the  creature  of  his  poHtical  conditions  as  he  is  of  his  physi- 
cal conditions.  The  Northern  man,  when  he  comes  South, 
realizes  the  situation  and  inevitably  aligns  himself  with  his 
Southern  neighbor.  Recently  I  was  talking  on  this  line  with  a 
New  Yorker,  who  moved  to  Georgia  about  five  years  ago. 
When  he  lived  in  New  York  he  was  a  Republican.  A  brother 
of  his,  an  ardent  Democrat,  moved  West.  A  short  time  ago 
there  was  a  family  reunion  in  New  York  state,  and  these  two 
brothers  commenced  to  talk  politics.  The  Western  man  an- 
nounced that  he  was  a  Republican,  the  Georgian  said  "I  am  a 
local  Democrat."  One  brother,  from  his  surroundings,  could 
change  completely,  the  other  unwillingly  was  forced  to  a  partial 
change. 

This  change  in  the  fundamental  law  was  made  by  the  North, 
and  if  we  are  ever  to  go  back  to  the  idea  of  the  fathers,  that  suf- 
frage is  a  matter  for  the  states,  the*  movement  must  originate 
and  be  carried  out  by  the  North.  But  come  what  may,  we  of  the 
South  will  do  our  best  to  solve  or  render  innocuous  this  grave 
problem  as  it  now  exists,  and  with  an  eye  single  to  the  best 
interests  of  the  whole  country.  We  are  in  our  father's  home, 
and  under  the  flag  that  our  fathers  loved  so  well. 

We  have  proven  our  loyalty  to  the  Union  and  devotion  to  the 
Old  Flag  in  the  late  war,  and  the  motives  of  the  South,  in  asking 
for  this  change,  cannot  be  fairly  questioned.  Our  young  men 
eagerly  volunteered  in  the  service  of  their  country,  and  rallied  by 

49 


the  thousands  to  the  defense  of  the  Old  Flag.  In  my  Con- 
gressional District  a  greater  number  of  men  volunteered  in  the 
late  war  than  from  any  other  Congressional  District  in  the 
Union,  taking  into  consideration  the  total  number  of  white  men 
in  the  district.  We  have  in  my  city  a  volunteer  company  formed 
long  prior  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  Mexican  war.  It  fought 
in  the  battles  of  that  war,  and  when  the  Civil  war  commenced  it 
was  one  of  the  first  companies  to  volunteer  on  the  Southern  side. 
When  the  war  with  Spain  was  declared,  it  was  the  first  company 
in  Mississippi  to  volunteer,  and  it  was  a  touching  sight  to  see 
the  few  old  survivors  of  the  Civil  war,  and  a  very  few  of  the 
Mexican  war,  follow  their  sons  and  grandsons  to  the  depot  and 
see  them  enthusiastically  dedicate  them  to  the  service  of  the 
country,  and  to  hear  them  exhort  them  to  defend  the  Old  Flag. 
Recently  I  was  traveling  through  the  mountains  of  Virginia, 
over  the  Norfolk  &  Western  Railroad.  It  was  a  bleak,  wintry- 
day,  and  the  sky  was  overcast  with  clouds.  As  the  train  rounded 
the  point  of  a  hill,  a  small  family  burying  ground  came-  into  view. 
The  rude  inclosure  around  it  contained  probably  half  a  dozen 
graves.  One  was  newer-looking  than  the  others,  but  it  had  no 
stone,  nor  even  headboard,  to  mark  the  name,  or  tell  who  lay 
buried  there ;  but  one  thing  did  distinguish  it  from  its  fellows  in 
that  humble  little  inclosure,  and  illumined  it  with  a  halo  of  senti- 
ment and  glory — above  it  floated  a  little,  weather-beaten,  cam- 
bric flag,  and  that  flag  was  the  "Stars  and  Stripes."  He  who 
rested  beneath  its  folds  had  died  in  the  service  of  his  country,  and 
his  relatives,  too  poor  to  put  this  fact  in  letters  graven  on  stone, 
but  justly  proud  of  his  glorious  death,  selected  this  method  of 
making  known  to  the  passer-by  that  he  who  slumbered  there  was 
one  of  the  nation's  heroes.  This  is  the  spirit  of  the  South,  and 
let  no  man  challenge  her  loyalty  to  the  Union,  or  her  devotion 
to  the  Old  Flag. 


THE  EAST  AND  WEST. 

PRESIDENT  CARY:  Gentlemen:  What  the  East  is  we 
have  seen  and  know,  but  the  West,  like  to-morrow,  no  man 
has  ever  found  or  seen.  Early  in"  the  century  it  was  supposed 
to  be  somewhere  out  in  Ohio.  Those  who  sought  it  there  were 
told  that  it  was  in  Illinois  or  Indiana,  or  Wisconsin.     Still  fol- 

50 


lowing  they  found  that  it  had  crossed  the  Mississippi,  the  Mis- 
souri, taken  rapid  strides  over  prairie  and  plain,  leaped  the 
rnightv  mountains  and  lighted  on  the  Pacific  Slope.  But  it  is  not 
there,  and  they  are  now  seeking  it  in  the  remotest  islands  of  the 
sea.  Vain  search  !  For  only  they  who  overtake  the  settingLSUn 
will  ever  find  the  West.  We  need  not  be  surprised  if  some  morn- 
ing we  shall  find  it  has  reached  round  the  globe  and  greets  us 
with  the  rising  orb  of  day. 

A  native  of  New  York,  I  shall  have  great  pleasure  in  intro- 
ducing an  eminent  citizen  of  that  state  to  respond  to  this  toast. 
Although  his  state  is  large,  its  boundaries  have  not  been  wide 
enough  to  confine  his  fame.  It  has  crowned  him  with  great  dis- 
tinction, but  many  think  they*  see  now  hovering  over  his  head 
honors  and  a  halo  w^hich  no  state  can  give — which  only  the  na- 
tion can  bestow. 

I  introduce  the  Hon.  Timothy  L.  Woodrufif,  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor of  the  State  of  New  York. 

HON.  TIMOTHY  L.  WOODRUFF:  Mr.  Chairman 
and  Gentlemen  of  the  Union  League  Club:  Coming  from 
the  Eastern  metropolis  to  address  the  Union  League  Club 
of  the  great  metropolis  of  the  West  on  a  subject  of  such 
limitless  possibihties  as  those  embraced  within  the  scope  of 
the  subject  assigned  me,  imposes  a  task  as  great  as  any  to  which 
I  have  ever  been  subjected.  In  the  circumstances  which  sur- 
round my  coming  I  should  have  given  a  different  answer  to  the 
highwayman  who  once  held  up  a  stranger  as  he  was  about  to 
enter  the  city  of  Chicago,  demanding  his  money  or  his  life. 
*'Go  ahead,"  said  the  stranger,  "and  blow  out  my  brains ;  I 
would  rather  go  into  Chicago  without  brains  than  without 
money."  Sincerely  do  I  appreciate  immunity  from  an  expe- 
rience of  this  character  and  rejoice  in  having  been  accorded  the 
privileges  of  meeting  the  members  of  the  Union  League  Club  of 
Chicago,  whose  guests  are  never  called  upon  to  sufifer  either 
financial  or  physical  fracture,  unless  it  may  be  the  latter,  and 
that  through  over  indulgence  in  its  lavish  hospitality.  x\s  a 
member  of  both  the  Union  League  Clubs  of  New  York  and 
Brooklyn  I  bear  to  you  fraternal  greetings. 

For  years  we  have  heard  sinister  threats  against  our  most 
cherished  institutions  and  have  witnessed  attempts  of  socialism 

51 


to  revive  between  the  East  and  the  West  the  spirit  of  sectionaHsm 
which  in  1861  brought  into  Hfe  all  over  the  North  Union  League 
clubs  to  aid  in  the  preservation  of  the  Union.  Born  to  save  the 
republic  from  the  efforts  to  disrupt  it,  these  clubs  have  Hved  and 
multiplied  to  preserve  us  in  the  closing  days  of  the  century  from 
repudiation  and  national  dishonor.  We  can  never  be  too  grate- 
ful to  these  associations  of  loyal  and  courageous  men  who  have 
made  it  possible  for  us  to  meet  tonight  under  one  flag  to  rejoice 
together  at  our  nation's  glorious  deliverance  from  its  most  insid- 
ious enemies  at  home ;  to  glory  in  her  marvelous  achievements 
abroad,  and  to  confer  together  for  the  continuance  of  her  integ- 
rity and  her  prestige  among  the  nations  of  the  world. 

In  the  present  great  outburst  of  American  patriotism,  South 
as  well  as  North,  the  name  "Union  League"  again  becomes  an 
inspiration.  As  the  power  and  glory  of  Democracy  fades  away 
more  and  more  in  the  obscurity  of  the  past  and  the  great  Re- 
publican Union  League  inherits  added  glory  from  our  recent 
history  and  acquires  new  impulse  from  the  present  triumphant 
hour,  we  may  expect  in  the  near  future  the  application  of  the 
term  "Union  League"  to  clubs  having  their  happy  homes  in  the 
Sunny  South.  Far  from  inconsistent  would  be  such  a  consum- 
mation in  view  of  the  recent  mobilization  on  the  bloody  field  of 
Chickamauga,  of  the  "boys  in  blue"  and  the  "boys  in  gray" ;  in 
view  of  our  representation  simultaneously  at  the  court  of  Madrid 
by  the  Northern  general,  Stewart  L.  Woodford,  and  at  Havana 
by  the  Southern  general,  Fitzhugh  Lee,  who  voiced  the  true 
American  sentiment  of  the  hour  when,  leaving  Cuba,  he  shouted 
to  the  Spaniards,  "Just  wait  until  we  come  back  and  you'll  whis- 
tle a  different  tune" ;  and  in  view  of  the  council  of  war  before  the 
fortifications  of  Santiago  in  which  among  the  chief  participants 
were  General  Shafter,  of  northern  Michigan,  and  General  Joe 
Wheeler,  of  southern  Alabama — Wheeler,  who  so  courteously  in- 
troduced the  Federal  major,  the  Northern  President  of  the 
United  States,  to  his  people  of  the  South,  that  we  hear  the  Presi- 
dent calling  upon  the  people  of  the  East  and  West  to  cherish  the 
memory  and  guard  the  graves  of  the  Southern  dead. 

The  dreams  of  our  Republican  statesmen,  philosophers  and 
laborers  for  reform  along  the  whole  line  of  human  endeavor  are 
rapidly  approaching  a  fuller  realization  than  ever  before.  The 
achievements  of  the  Republican  party  in  the  past  have  been  but 

52 


stepping-stones  to  its  full  development  during  this  the  last  ad- 
ministration of  the  nineteenth  century.  Both  as  a  party  and  as 
a  nation  we  must  seek  to  achieve  for  others  as  well  as  for  our- 
selves. Is  it  impossible  that  there  can  be  any  disinterested  na- 
tional efifort?  It  is  impossible  that  there  can  be  any  unselfish 
effort  for  the  public  good?  Indeed  for  what  other  purpose  are 
you  Republicans  banded  together  in  this  powerful  political  asso- 
ciation of  men  called  the  Union  League  Club  of  Chicago  ?  The 
cynic  may  say  it  is  for  yourselves,  but  when  one  reflects  upon 
your  tireless  efiforts  to  secure  a  better  and  more  perfect  govern- 
ment of  this  municipality,  of  your  state  and  of  the  nation,  and 
how  patiently  you  have  contributed  of  your  time  and  influence 
to  this,  all  must  respect  your  disinterestedness  and  civic  courage 
and  accord  you  the  full  measure  of  reward  that  is  due  to  all  true 
American  citizenship. 

The  East  and  the  West!  In  his  farewell  address,  Washing- 
ton, whose  birthday  we  have  tonight  assembled  to  celebrate, 
dwelt  upon  the  importance  of  one  section  of  the  country  to  every 
other  section,  each  of  which  finds  its  complement  in  the  other. 
The  nation  has  since  grown  in  population  from  five  millions  to 
eighty-five  millions,  has  spread  across  the  North  American  con- 
tinent and  even  across  the  Pacific  ocean.  His  argument  applies 
with  all  its  original  force  to  the  complement  America  will  find 
in  the  islands  of  the  Gulf  and  of  the  Pacific.  They  produce 
much  that  we  require  and  we  manufacture  everything  they  need. 
How  prophetic  then  these  words  from  that  farewell  address: 
"The  East  in  its  intercourse  with  the  West  will  more  and  more 
find  a  valuable  vent  for  the  commodities  which  it  brings  from 
abroad  or  manufactures  at  home,  while  the  West  will  derive  from 
the  East  supplies  requisite  to  its  growth  and  comfort,  and  what 
is  perhaps  of  still  greater  consequence,  it  must  of  necessity  owe 
the  enjoyment  of  an  indispensable  outlet  for  its  products  to  the 
weight,  influence  and  future  maritime  strength  of  the  Atlantic 
side  of  the  Union." 

These  words  of  Washington  apply  to  the  vast  future  trade 
between  the  opposite  shores  of  the  Pacific  as  well  as  to  the  un- 
paralleled commerce  which  has  developed  since  his  day,  on  the 
American  continent,  and  yet  they  were  uttered  nearly  half  a  cen- 
tury before  the  Union  stretched  to  the  western  ocean  on  which 
it  has  a  coast  Hne  of  ten  thousand  miles,  and  a  wealth  and  popu- 

53   ■ 


lation  soon  to  stand  as  the  paramount  power  of  the  Pacific.  The 
Mediterranean,  so-called  because  it  was  the  center  of  the  then 
known  world,  bearing  the  commerce  of  ancient  Egypt,  Tyre, 
Athens,  Rome,  Carthage,  Spain,  was  in  time  succeeded  by  the 
Atlantic  as  the  central  sea,  until  the  course  of  empire  in  its  west- 
ward sweep  spanned  the  New  World  and  revealed  that  mighty 
ocean  which  the  Old  World  never  knew,  destined  in  the  century 
now  rising  before  us  to  be  the  Mediterranean  of  the  globe. 

'The  East  and  the  West !"  Where  is  the  East  and  where  the 
West  of  the  United  States  of  America  in  this  year  of  our  Lord 
1900?  The  geographical  center  has  been  gradually  moved  from 
the  mid-most  point  of  the  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
square  miles  of  the  original  thirteen  colonies,  first,  to  a  point 
half-way  across  the  American  continent,  thence  by  the  acquisi- 
tion of  Alaska,  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  miles  west  of  the 
Golden  Gate ;  until  now  in  starting  for  the  furthermost  domain 
of  the  republic,  it  matters  not  whether  you  turn  your  face  toward 
the  rising  or  the  setting  sun.  A  zone  of  freedom  now  encircles 
the  W'Orld.  The  patriotism  which  has  welled  up  from  all  parts 
of  our  common  country  has  forever  washed  out  the  sectional 
lines  of  latitude  which  once  parted  the  North  from  the  South 
and  with  one  more  supreme  struggle  in  1900,  like  that  of  1896, 
we  shall  thwart  the  last  effort  of  any  party  to  substitute  a  longi- 
tudinal sectional  line  separating  the  East  from  the  West. 

The  expansion  of  the  United  States,  both  to  the  eastward  and 
to  the  westward,  is  as  natural  as  has  been  the  expansion  of  this 
great  city  of  Chicago.  The  nation,  like  the  city,  or  even  the 
town  or  the  village,  which  does  not  grow,  is  the  tree  that  ceases 
to  extend  its  roots  and  branches,  and  like  the  tree,  when  growth 
ceases,  decays  and  dies.  The  tide  in  the  affairs  of  nations  is  like 
the  tide  on  the  shore  of  the  sea ;  it  ebbs  when  it  ceases  to  flow. 
AH  history  teaches  that  a  nation  is  subject  to  the  same  laws  of 
growth,  of  decay  and  of  retrogression.  The  bridge  of  old  was  a 
tree  felled  across  a  stream.  The  boat  was  dug  out  of  a  log. 
Expansion  is  already  declared  in  the  great  bridges  that  span  our 
rivers  and  in  the  magnificent  cruisers  that  bear  the  names  of  your 
city  and  mine !  Who  can  stay  its  onward  sweep  or  stifle  its  crv 
of  "Westward  Ho!"? 

The  East  and  the  West !  We  of  the  East  claim  you  and  all 
of  the  West  as  the  progeny  of  the  Eastern  pioneer.     Out  of  this 

54 


relationship  have  come  all  the  best  qualities  of  both  sections. 
Every  great  commercial  house  has  "New  York  and  Chicago"  on 
its  letterheads.  Eastern  capital  eagerly  seeks  Western  invest- 
ments and  Western  capital  seeks  Eastern  enterprises.  The  East 
and  the  West  together  are  developing  and  concentrating  the 
powers  of  the  present  and  the  potential  possibilities  of  the  future. 

Railways,  steamships,  telegraphs,  telephones  and  cables  have 
brought  the  world  together.  Many  a  man  goes  further  between 
his  office  and  his  home  daily  than  could  be  covered  in  two  whole 
days  a  century  ago.  One  takes  a  trip  to  Europe  or  to  San 
Francisco  with  less  preparation  and  far  less  fatigue  than  was  at 
that  time  incident  to  a  journey  between  New  York  and  Boston 
or  Philadelphia,  the  principal  commercial  centers  of  the  conti- 
nent. When  we  consider  the  physical  ease  with  which  today  the 
West  can  be  reached  from  the  East  we  grasp  with  corresponding 
mental  ease  the  idea  of  present  day  expansion  and  perceive  how 
lacking  in  foresight  are  those  who  heed  the  cry  of  the  anti- 
expansionists. 

Unless  all  signs  fail  the  great  imperial  West  will  be  as  Re- 
publican in  1900  as  was  the  sound-money  East  in  1896.  Our 
party  has  stood  by  every  principle  it  ever  enunciated.  Defeated 
in  1892  we  reaffirmed  in  1896  the  great  principle  of  protection  to 
American  industries.  Largely  on  that  issue  was  won  the  victory 
which  placed  in  the  presidential  chair  its  foremost  exponent, 
who,  standing  by  his  guns,  went  down  in  defeat  only  to  rise 
again  holding  aloft  the  banner  of  protection.  The  wage-earners 
who  voted  against  the  Republican  party  in  1892  had  discovered 
in  1896  that  in  bringing  down  upon  their  heads  the  roof  that 
protected  both  them  and  their  employers,  they  were  exposed  to 
the  winds  of  heaven  without  protection  from  the  cold,  while  the 
employer,  though  also  out  in  the  cold,  was  better  prepared  to 
withstand  the  storms  of  adversity.  We  told  the  Democrats,  as 
together  we  viewed  the  spectacle  of  the  fight  between  the  gold 
and  the  silver  cats  on  the  top  of  the  chimney  of  the  deserted 
factory,  that  we  would  soon  put  a  stop  to  that  scrap  when  we 
lighted  the  fires  of  McKinley  prosperity.  If  the  fire  has  not 
quite  singed  the  silver  cat  to  death  it  certainly  has  so  enveloped 
him  in  smoke  that  he  is  no  longer  visible.  Silver  as  an  issue  has 
disappeared,  except  in  the  silver  tones  that  issue  from  the  wan- 
dering son  of  Nebraska.     There  are  no  more  "solid  Democrats." 

55 


Those  who  still  claim  they  are  are  really  "silver  plated." 

The  triumph  of  gold  has  wrought  the  glory  of  the  nation! 
Gold  is  the  setting  of  the  gems  in  Columbia's  diadem.  Polished 
and  burnished  by  the  attrition  of  patriotic  rivalry  in  all  parts  of 
our  common  country,  its  splendor  is  more  refulgent  than  ever, 
undimmed  by  the  shadow  of  a  single  sectional  line.  All  the 
forty-five  gems  that  constitute  the  cluster  reflect  a  greater  glory ; 
augmented  by  the  Pearl  of  the  Antilles  and  freshly  adorned  by 
the  jewels  of  the  Orient !  In  the  new  and  mighty  destiny  unfold- 
ing before  us  as  a  nation,  emulating  as  we  must  the  supreme 
endeavors  of  the  nations  of  the  world  at  the  time  of  their  greatest 
power,  the  perfect  glory  of  the  future  will  only  come  as  we  do 
more  for  mankind  and  do  it  better  than  all  the  world  has  ever 
done. 


56 


.-^^^  A^ 


m^H&M 


